Alibaba sales jump 56pc in last three months

Record spending at its Singles Day shopping event helped sales at Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba surge 56 per cent in the last three months of 2017, reports BBC.

Revenues hit 83.03bn yuan ($13.2b; £9.2b), up from 53.2b yuan a year earlier - beating forecasts.

The firm, which was started by billionaire Jack Ma, also lifted its 2018 revenue forecast.

Alibaba is one of the world's most valuable companies, and its shares nearly doubled in value last year.

The final quarter of the year is typically strong for the business, as Singles Day is held in November. Alibaba said $25.4bn was spent on its platforms during the shopping blitz in 2017.

But as the Chinese e-commerce market shows signs of saturation, it is looking to grow in other areas, including cloud computing and offline retail. Along with local rivals Tencent and JD.com, Alibaba has been investing heavily in brick-and-mortar retailers over the last year.