LONDON, United Kingdom. The chief executive of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has been replaced.
Daniel Zhang, the firm’s chief operating officer, will take over from Jonathan Lu, who will become vice chairman.
The change at the top was announced as the company reported a 45% hike in revenue to 17.43bn yuan (£1.84bn) for the three months to March.
The sales were better than expected and saw shares in the e-marketplace, founded by entrepreneur Jack Ma, jump by 10% in pre-market trading.
Alibaba has also seen user numbers soar by 37% to 350 million, with its e-commerce platforms, including Taobao and Tmall, accounting for 80% of Chinese online shopping.
And there was continued strong growth in shopping using mobile devices, accounting for 51% of the value of sales in the latest quarter, up from 42% in the previous period.
The Hangzhou-based company said it planned a jobs freeze for the current financial year, but added it will “continue to bring in the necessary talent to enable us to execute our growth plans”.
Mr Zhang joined the company in 2007.
Alibaba founder Mr Ma said: “There is no better person to lead Alibaba Group as we embark on the next stage of our growth on top of the strong foundation that Jonathan helped build.”
Alibaba is China’s biggest e-commerce company and saw a record-breaking $25bn flotation in New York last September, but its stock price has since dropped sharply – down about 23% since the start of the year.
Credit: Sky News
