Chinese internet shopping giant Alibaba has reported a quarterly net profit of $792 million on higher advertising fees and commission charges but attracted concern over slowing sales.
The swing into profit was compared to a loss of $246 million (£ million) during the same quarter last year, ending September, when it also took a $550 million charge to buy back some of its own shares from Yahoo.
The figures, which are released by 24 per cent shareholder Yahoo! as part of its fourth quarter update to the market. Yahoo! discloses the Alibaba figures, the only source of information about the company ahead of its mooted IPO later this year, with a three month time lag.
The markets were unnerved by lower revenue growth at the business which reported a sales increase of 51 per cent to 1.78 billion compared to 60 per cent growth in the second quarter.
Shares in Yahoo!, which are now closely linked to the fortunes of Alibaba, dropped 8.7 per cent yesterday as a result, according to the Wall Street Journal's website.
Alibaba operates Chinese shopping websites including Taobao and Tmall selling everything from luxury goods to food. It operates in a similar way to Amazon's Marketplace or Ebay by connecting shoppers with third-party sellers.
According to figures disclosed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Alibaba accounted for 70 per cent of package deliveries in China last year.
Most of its sales are from commission and advertising. US analysts estimated it could be worth more than $100 billion last year, with one suggesting it could be worth as much as $190 billion.
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