Alibaba expects Yahoo China to turn profit, continued strong growth from Taobao

[mandy]

China's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba.com, said Yahoo China would turn a profit next year and that its Taobao auction site could contribute 30 percent of total revenues in four to five years.

Jack Ma, Alibaba's founder and chairman, also told Reuters at the China Century Summit that he has frozen plans to go public because he wants to focus on building the business rather than on financials. He said Alibaba will roll out a new service in the next month but declined to give details.

Taobao, which displaced eBay in China's fast-growing market, is a free service with 27 million users and is adding 60,000 each day. The site, which forced Ebay to cut prices last year, currently contributes little or nothing to the top line.

"I hope Taobao can contribute 30 percent of revenue," Ma said. "A rough estimate would be in 2010 or 2011."...

full article: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenew...eutersEdge&storyID=2006-09-05T125134Z_01_T73038_RTRUKOC_0_US-SUMMIT-ALIBABA.xml