Alibaba’s Earnings Jump as China’s Online Shopping Boom Continues<br />HONG KONG — When Joseph C. Tsai, the billionaire vice chairman of the Alibaba Group, recently agreed to buy a 49 percent stake in the Brooklyn Nets, it was a sign of the enormous financial success<br />that the company has enjoyed amid China’s e-commerce boom.<br />Alibaba has become one of the most highly valued technology companies in the world,<br />and its recent string of strong financial results has signaled the continued rise of China’s internet industry and the heartiness of its hundreds of millions of online shoppers.<br />The company said on Thursday that profit for its most recent quarter more than doubled compared<br />with the same period a year ago, thanks in part to a 61 percent rise in revenue.<br />Still, the results released Thursday show that Alibaba still has ground to cover as<br />it seeks to grow beyond e-commerce into more of a data and technology company.<br />McKinsey estimates that the country’s middle class will expand to 315 million households by 2030, from 116 million households last year.
