Alibaba Aims To Serve 1 Bln Consumers Annually; Buys 33% Stake In Ant Financial

(RTTNews) - Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) said that it aims to serve more than one billion annual active consumers and achieve over RMB 10 trillion in annual gross merchandise volume or GMV through its China consumer business by the end of fiscal 2024.

The Chinese e-commerce giant chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang unveiled the company's five-year goals for its China consumer business and told investors that the company had 730 million annual active consumers at its Chinese consumer business in 12 months ended June 30, 2019.

With the about 130 million annual active consumers in its cross border and global retail commerce business, the company has about 860 million annual active customers worldwide.

Meanwhile, Alipay had about 900 million annual active users in China. Together, Alibaba Group and Ant Financial have around 960 million users in China.

The company is on track to meet its long-term goal of serving two billion customers, support 10 million profitable SMEs and help create 100 million jobs by 2036, the company said in a statement.

Separately, Alibaba Group said it has acquired 33% equity interest in Ant Financial.

The new transaction terminates a profit-sharing arrangement under which Ant Financial previously used to pay fees equal to 37.5% of its pre-tax profits to Alibaba.

BABA is currently trading at $175.34, down $1.64 or 0.93 percent.