Alibaba's $9.3 billion Singles' Day was really only $230 m ZT# Stock
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Alibaba's $9.3 billion Singles' Day was really only $230 million
I know, I know, I have also read the headlines…
Alibaba reports record $9 billion Singles’ Day sales (Reuters)
Alibaba’s ‘Singles Day’ sales top $9 billion, bigger than Black Friday (
MarketWatch)
Alibaba breaks sales record on China’s ‘Singles Day’ (CNET)
Alibaba Smashes Its Record On China’s Singles’ Day With $9.3B In Sales (
TechCrunch)
Alibaba ($BABA) did over $9 BILLION, so why am I writing $230 million?
I think everybody understands why media outlets need headlines like these,
and while some writers do clarify it somewhere in the body of the article, I
think many don’t even understand the distinction.
When Apple ($AAPL) announced that they sold over 10 million iPhones in the
first weekend of the iPhone 6 launch, those $7.5 billion dollars (assuming
an ASP of $750) are Apple’s revenues.
With Alibaba however, these numbers that were widely reported for Singles’
Day were not revenues at all, they are called GMV or Gross Merchandise
Volume.
Alibaba’s retail marketplaces (Taobao and Tmall) are not like Walmart ($WMT
) which buys the products and then turns around and sells them to consumers.
From Alibaba’s F-1 filing:
"We do not engage in direct sales, compete with our merchants or hold
inventory."
So where does Alibaba generate revenues from?
"Our revenue is primarily generated from merchants through online
marketing services (via Alimama, our proprietary online marketing platform),
commissions on transactions and fees for online services. We also generate
revenues through fees from memberships, value-added services and cloud
computing services."
What’s important to understand here is that you need to compare apples to
apples. Alibaba’s GMV cannot - at all - be compared to any company’s
revenues, and other than a handful of companies like eBay ($EBAY) & parts of
Amazon ($AMZN) that also report GMV, it shouldn’t be compared to anything.
It is a tremendously useful metric to follow, enabling investors to track
underlying trends of their business, but that’s about it.
On the same token, the actual revenues that Alibaba generates also have to
be compared to similar companies and not to most retailers, especially not
Walmart. Walmart can’t even dream of generating the same types of margins
on their revenues that Alibaba does on theirs.
My headline $230 million number simply took the $9.3 billion and multiplied
it by the average monetization rate of the last couple of years.
Also interesting, is that mobile monetization - while increasing
dramatically over the last two quarters - is still considerably lower than
desktop monetization . So if I owned Alibaba, I wouldn’t necessarily be
thrilled with the fact that 42.6% of the $9.3 billion of Singles’ Day GMV -
680 bps higher than last quarter - came from mobile. It might mean that my
$230 million number is a bit aggressive.
- Aron
Twitter: @MicroFundy
photo credit: Mashable/Mark Lennihan/Assocaiated Press
Alibaba's $9.3 billion Singles' Day was really only $230 million
I know, I know, I have also read the headlines…
Alibaba reports record $9 billion Singles’ Day sales (Reuters)
Alibaba’s ‘Singles Day’ sales top $9 billion, bigger than Black Friday (
MarketWatch)
Alibaba breaks sales record on China’s ‘Singles Day’ (CNET)
Alibaba Smashes Its Record On China’s Singles’ Day With $9.3B In Sales (
TechCrunch)
Alibaba ($BABA) did over $9 BILLION, so why am I writing $230 million?
I think everybody understands why media outlets need headlines like these,
and while some writers do clarify it somewhere in the body of the article, I
think many don’t even understand the distinction.
When Apple ($AAPL) announced that they sold over 10 million iPhones in the
first weekend of the iPhone 6 launch, those $7.5 billion dollars (assuming
an ASP of $750) are Apple’s revenues.
With Alibaba however, these numbers that were widely reported for Singles’
Day were not revenues at all, they are called GMV or Gross Merchandise
Volume.
Alibaba’s retail marketplaces (Taobao and Tmall) are not like Walmart ($WMT
) which buys the products and then turns around and sells them to consumers.
From Alibaba’s F-1 filing:
"We do not engage in direct sales, compete with our merchants or hold
inventory."
So where does Alibaba generate revenues from?
"Our revenue is primarily generated from merchants through online
marketing services (via Alimama, our proprietary online marketing platform),
commissions on transactions and fees for online services. We also generate
revenues through fees from memberships, value-added services and cloud
computing services."
What’s important to understand here is that you need to compare apples to
apples. Alibaba’s GMV cannot - at all - be compared to any company’s
revenues, and other than a handful of companies like eBay ($EBAY) & parts of
Amazon ($AMZN) that also report GMV, it shouldn’t be compared to anything.
It is a tremendously useful metric to follow, enabling investors to track
underlying trends of their business, but that’s about it.
On the same token, the actual revenues that Alibaba generates also have to
be compared to similar companies and not to most retailers, especially not
Walmart. Walmart can’t even dream of generating the same types of margins
on their revenues that Alibaba does on theirs.
My headline $230 million number simply took the $9.3 billion and multiplied
it by the average monetization rate of the last couple of years.
Also interesting, is that mobile monetization - while increasing
dramatically over the last two quarters - is still considerably lower than
desktop monetization . So if I owned Alibaba, I wouldn’t necessarily be
thrilled with the fact that 42.6% of the $9.3 billion of Singles’ Day GMV -
680 bps higher than last quarter - came from mobile. It might mean that my
$230 million number is a bit aggressive.
- Aron
Twitter: @MicroFundy
photo credit: Mashable/Mark Lennihan/Assocaiated Press