阿里巴巴二季度財報強(qiáng)勁，銷售額同比增長60%
北京——中國和美國之間不斷升級的貿(mào)易戰(zhàn)令世界第二大經(jīng)濟(jì)體感到不安。中國股市大跌。貨幣貶值。
Serving the nation’s middle-class shoppers, however, still seems to be rollicking good business.
然而，為該國的中產(chǎn)階級購物者提供服務(wù)，似乎仍然是好買賣。
The Alibaba Group, the Chinese e-commerce leviathan, reported a rise in sales of more than 60 percent in the latest quarter compared with a year earlier.
中國電子商務(wù)巨頭阿里巴巴集團(tuán)報告稱，它新一季度的銷售額同比增長了60%以上。
Profits for April to June fell by more than 40 percent, however, reflecting the effect of a large increase in the valuation of Ant Financial, an Alibaba sister company. Because Alibaba has given some employees awards based on Ant shares, the group’s compensation expenses grew sizably.
然而，4月至6月，公司利潤下降超過40%，反映了阿里巴巴的姊妹公司螞蟻金服的估值大幅上升的影響。由于阿里巴巴根據(jù)螞蟻金服的股份給予一些員工獎勵，因此該集團(tuán)薪酬支出大幅增長。
Had that not been the case, the company said, profits would have grown by more than a third.
該公司表示，如果不考慮這個因素，公司利潤將增長逾三分之一。
Alibaba is already among the world’s largest and most influential forces in digital retail. But it is setting its sights on providing technology to enable all commerce, whether online or off, along with logistics and marketing. Thursday’s strong results suggest that the company’s empire building has not harmed the current core of its business: selling ads to the merchants on its shopping platforms.
阿里巴巴已成為全球數(shù)字零售業(yè)內(nèi)最大、最具影響力的公司之一。但它的目標(biāo)是向線上和線下各種商業(yè)活動提供技術(shù)，以及物流和營銷。周四的強(qiáng)勁業(yè)績表明，該公司的帝國建設(shè)并未損害其業(yè)務(wù)當(dāng)前的核心：在其購物平臺上向商家銷售廣告。
“This model is kind of unique,” said Jialong Shi, an analyst in Hong Kong with the investment bank Nomura. “If the macro slowdown is to take a toll on the overall retail business, Alibaba should, on the back of this unique marketplace model, fare relatively better.”
“這種模式在某種程度上是獨(dú)一無二的，”投行野村證券在香港的分析師史家龍表示。 “如果宏觀經(jīng)濟(jì)放緩對整體零售業(yè)務(wù)造成影響，阿里巴巴在這種獨(dú)特的市場模式支持下，發(fā)展應(yīng)該相對較好。”
Many Chinese internet companies have been in choppy waters recently. Last week, shares of Tencent Holdings, the colossus of social media, messaging and payments, tumbled after the company reported a rare drop in profit growth. Tencent’s stock more than doubled in value last year. This year, it is down about 30 percent from its peak.
最近，許多中國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司都陷入動蕩。上周，在公司報告利潤增長罕見下滑之后，社交媒體、即時通信和支付巨頭騰訊控股的股價暴跌。騰訊的股價去年翻了一倍多。今年，它比峰值下降了約30%。
JD.com, the Chinese e-retailer and Alibaba rival, has had a similarly rough year. Investor skepticism also has not spared a swath of smaller Chinese names, in businesses from e-books to gadgets.
中國電子零售商和阿里巴巴的競爭對手京東也經(jīng)歷了同樣艱難的一年。從電子書到電子產(chǎn)品，一批較小的中國品牌也遭到了投資者的懷疑。
Alibaba’s share price has swung, too, as the company invests to broaden its reach in the brick-and-mortar world. It is opening its own supermarkets and modernizing mom-and-pop stores. It is teaming up with Starbucks to deliver Frappuccinos. It has unveiled a towering “car vending machine” in Guangzhou that dispenses vehicles for test drives.
隨著公司投資擴(kuò)大在實體經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)域的影響力，阿里巴巴的股價也出現(xiàn)了波動。它正在開設(shè)自己的超市和現(xiàn)代化的小型零售店，與星巴克合作推出星冰樂外送服務(wù)。它在廣州推出了一款高大的“汽車售賣機(jī)”，可以為試駕配送車輛。
The more different realms of consumer life in which Alibaba has a hand, the more data it can amass on how consumers spend, and on what they want. That makes Alibaba’s platforms more useful to vendors, which in turn helps the company sell more ads and services to those merchants.
隨著阿里巴巴涉足消費(fèi)者的更多生活領(lǐng)域，它也積累了更多消費(fèi)者如何消費(fèi)以及消費(fèi)什么的數(shù)據(jù)。這使得阿里巴巴的平臺對賣家更有用，反過來又有助于阿里巴巴向這些商家銷售更多的廣告和服務(wù)。
But all that spending for the future has eaten somewhat into Alibaba’s profits in the present. And the uncertainty confronting China’s economy could still mean that the company’s sales growth hits stumbles.
但是，面向未來的所有支出都在一定程度上影響了阿里巴巴目前的利潤。而中國經(jīng)濟(jì)面臨的不確定性仍可能意味著該公司的銷售增長遇到挫折。
Pessimism, along with the rising cost of living, has turned some young Chinese into penny pinchers. Alibaba said on Thursday that the value of sales on its Tmall platform, which caters to wealthier customers, grew by more than a third in the June quarter compared with a year earlier. That is somewhat slower than the 40 percent growth clocked in the previous quarter.
悲觀主義以及不斷上升的生活成本使一些年輕的中國人開始降低消費(fèi)。阿里巴巴周四表示，與去年同期相比，為滿足較富裕消費(fèi)者的天貓平臺的銷售額，在6月這個季度增長了三分之一以上。這比上一季度40%的增長速度略慢。
Another sign of the times: A bargain-basement app called Pinduoduo has come out of nowhere to become one of China’s most popular online retail destinations. Nearly 350 million people took to the app in the last year to buy dirt-cheap products of sometimes iffy quality and authenticity. Pinduoduo’s parent company, which was started only three years ago, listed shares on Nasdaq in July.
時代的另一個標(biāo)志：一款名為拼多多的廉價購物應(yīng)用程序一躍成為中國最受歡迎的在線零售應(yīng)用之一。去年，有近3.5億人使用該應(yīng)用程序，購買質(zhì)量和真實性往往成問題的廉價產(chǎn)品。拼多多的母公司僅在三年前成立，于7月在納斯達(dá)克上市。
A far greater value of merchandise is still sold on Alibaba’s Taobao platform than on Pinduoduo, and Taobao still has many more merchants. But Steven Zhu, an analyst with the research firm Pacific Epoch, said surveys of merchants and conversations with industry insiders had led him to believe that many of Pinduoduo’s more than one million merchants were also on Taobao.
在阿里巴巴的淘寶平臺上銷售的商品價值遠(yuǎn)高于拼多多，淘寶上的商家也多得多。但研究公司弘亞世紀(jì)(Pacific Epoch)的分析師祝征宏表示，對商家的調(diào)查以及同業(yè)內(nèi)人士的對話使他相信，拼多多上超過一百萬的商戶之中，有很多也在淘寶上出售商品。
That suggests that these vendors might shift their energies this year to selling wares on the newer, hotter platform.
這表明這些供應(yīng)商今年可能會將精力轉(zhuǎn)移到在更新、更熱門的平臺上銷售產(chǎn)品。
“From a sustainability perspective, I think Pinduoduo still has issues,” Mr. Zhu said. But for Alibaba, he said, Pinduoduo’s size “is something that you cannot ignore at all.”
“從可持續(xù)發(fā)展的角度來看，我認(rèn)為拼多多仍有問題，”祝征宏說。但他表示，對于阿里巴巴來說，拼多多的規(guī)模“完全不可忽視”。
