Some still see continued growth for e-commerce giant

Alibaba Group Holding, China's largest e-commerce company, reported Tuesday a net profit rise of over 15 percent year-on-year in its first quarterly report released since it got listed in the US, while its revenue increased by more than 50 percent compared to the same period last year.

The net income did not include share-based compensation expenses and amortization of intangible assets.

Net income attributable to shareholders rose 15.5 percent year-on-year to $1.1 billion in the July-September period, which met most analyst estimates.

Revenue for the quarter rose 53.7 percent to 16.83 billion yuan ($2.74 billion), above expected sales of $2.7 billion.

Mobile revenue was more than 10 times higher than in the same period last year. Diluted earnings per share were $0.20.

Alibaba shares were flat in pre-market trading in New York Tuesday morning (US time), having closed at $101.80 at Monday's close.

However, analysts expect the company to still have fast growth potential in the future driven by its core business as well as its expansion into other sectors.

"Tmall.com [a business-to-consumer (B2C) website under Alibaba] and AliExpress [an online wholesale marketplace under Alibaba] will be the major contributors for its profit growth in the future," Tang Jia, an industry analyst with market research firm Analysys International, told the Global Times Tuesday.

Tmall.com will see fast growth in advertisements and commission fees, which are the two major ways for Alibaba to make profits, according to Tang.

Sales revenue for Alibaba will also likely boom on the expected peak shopping day on November 11, which is called "Singles' Day" in China, said Tang.

Alibaba announced record sales of 35 billion yuan ($5.7 billion) for last year's Singles' Day.

In related news, Gilt, a global online shopping website, announced on Thursday that it had reached a cooperation agreement with Alipay, a payment platform owned by Alibaba, making it possible for consumers in China to shop on its website for global brands.

In addition to the retail sector in which both Alibaba's tmall.com and taobao.com are focused on, the firm is also expanding into other sectors such as tourism.

Alibaba announced on October 28 that its online trip business will operate independently under a new brand Alitrip, in an attempt to expand further into the online travel business after four years.

Previously, the online tourism business of the Alibaba group was operated by Taobao Trip, a flight and hotel aggregator under taobao.com.

The tourism sector will also be an important source of revenue for Alibaba after a few years of expansion, Feng Lin, an e-commerce expert with the China e-Business Research Center, told the Global Times Monday.

Since Alibaba has accumulated a huge database of users and has a strong travel information search engine, it has advantages in expanding its business to the tourism sector, according to Feng.

Feng also predicted that Alibaba's business performance will continue to get better considering its mature management and the growing demand for online shopping in China.

Agencies contributed to this story