(Yicai Global) Aug. 21 -- Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding saw its net profit jump by 28 percent in the second quarter from the same period last year as the novel coronavirus pandemic prompted many businesses to start trading online and livestreaming sales more than doubled.

The Hangzhou-based firm logged non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles net profit of CNY39.47 billion (USD5.7 billion) for the three months ended June 30, according to its latest financial report released yesterday. Revenue soared 34 percent to CNY153.75 billion (USD21.76 billion).

“Alibaba has delivered excellent results this past quarter,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Zhang Yong. “We were well positioned to capture growth from the ongoing digital transformation, which has been accelerated by the pandemic, in both consumption and enterprise operations,” he added.

The gross merchandise value of goods livestreamed on its e-marketplace site Taobao more than doubled over the period. It had 742 million active consumers in China as of June 30, an increase of 16 million from the 12-month period ended March 31 this year.

“Our domestic core commerce business has fully recovered to pre-Covid-19 levels across the board, while cloud computing revenue grew 59 percent year-on-year. Our strong profit growth and cash flow enable us to continue to strengthen our core business and invest for long term growth,” Chief Financial Officer Wu Wei said.

In terms of international business, Alibaba's Southeast Asian e-commerce platform Lazada saw its order volume more than double in the second quarter.

Alibaba’s stock price in the US [NYSE:BABA] closed down 1.01 percent at USD257.97 yesterday, and its Hong Kong stock [HKG:9988] was trading down 0.63 percent this afternoon at HKD253.40 (USD32.69).

Editor: Kim Taylor