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HONG KONG — China’s economic growth is slowing, but its biggest online marketplaces are doing just fine.
香港——中国的经济增长正在放缓，但它最大的在线市场表现良好。
Alibaba Group, China’s largest e-commerce company, reported strong revenue growth on Thursday as it continued to lure shoppers to its websites. The company, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, also earned more money from vendors, who pay to sell and advertise their goods on its sites.
周四，在继续吸引购物者前往自己的网站同时，中国最大的电子商务公司阿里巴巴集团公布了强劲的收入增长。在纽约证券交易所(New York Stock Exchange)上市的该公司来自卖家的收入也增加了。卖家付费在阿里巴巴的网站上销售和推广自己的商品。
The company said sales rose 59 percent in the first quarter to $4.8 billion. Its operating profit rose 71 percent to $1.3 billion.
该公司称一季度销售额增加59%，达48亿美元（321.54亿元人民币）。营业利润增加71%，达13亿美元。
For many American investors, Alibaba is seen as a proxy for the health of the Chinese economy and the strength of its consumers. The company has outperformed the broader retail market in China. It has also been investing in the growth of e-commerce in the country — focusing on logistics and on rural areas where fewer people are online — so it can continue to grow even as the country’s economy slows.
阿里巴巴被很多美国投资者视为中国经济健康情况和消费者实力的代表。该公司的表现超过了中国整体零售市场。它也一直在投资乡村地区的电商增长——集中在物流和网络用户更少的农村地区——以便在中国经济放缓时，自己能够继续增长。
The company is also working hard to brace itself for a further slowdown in China, pushing out of its conventional online shopping business into cloud computing, entertainment through online video and gaming, and even a food delivery business. Those long-term efforts have had mixed results. Results this quarter, for instance, showed that the company’s smartphone-based food delivery business, Koubei, continued to burn cash competing with rivals.
该公司也在努力为中国进一步放缓做好准备，从传统的网购业务发展到云计算，通过在线视频和游戏进军娱乐业，甚至还拓展了送餐业务。这些长远计划的结果喜忧参半。比如，本季度的财报显示，该公司基于智能手机的送餐公司口碑网仍在烧钱与对手竞争。
Yet other sectors have been more promising. Alibaba’s cloud computing service, which is similar to the one offered by Amazon, has quickly gained traction in China, where businesses have been relying on Alibaba for computing power.
不过其他一些领域的前景更喜人。阿里巴巴的云计算服务——类似于亚马逊(Amazon)提供的相关服务——迅速在中国得到认可。中国企业一直依赖阿里巴巴为其提供计算能力。
Alibaba’s gross merchandise volume, a closely watched measure of the transactions on the company’s websites, grew 24 percent compared with the same period a year earlier, about the same pace as the prior quarter.
阿里巴巴的商品交易总额同比增加24%，增幅与前一个季度大致持平。这是一个受到密切关注的指标，衡量的是阿里巴巴网站上的交易情况。
Investors bid Alibaba’s shares up more than 2 percent in premarket trading on the results.
针对这一业绩表现，投资者在盘前交易中将阿里巴巴的股价推高了逾2%。
The underlying assumption that slowing growth in China will eventually hurt Alibaba’s sales has focused more attention on its other businesses. During its recent investor day, Alibaba said it would start to offer more information on its efforts in sectors like entertainment and food delivery.
认为中国增长放缓最终会影响到阿里巴巴销售额的根本假设，把注意力更多地放在了该公司的其他业务上。在最近的投资者日上，阿里巴巴表示将开始提供更多有关其在娱乐和送餐等领域的行动的信息。
“We have already started to see early signs of business breakthroughs in new categories and some of its burgeoning growth assets,” Evan Zhou, a Credit Suisse analyst, wrote in a recent report.
“我们已经开始看到一些早期迹象显示，它在新领域的业务取得突破，部分资产增长迅速，”瑞信(Credit Suisse)分析师埃文•周(Evan Zhou)在最近的一份报告中写道。
Yet those new breakthroughs come with risk. In the cloud computing sector, Alibaba has to contend with foreign rivals, and it faces a domestic challenge from the search engine Baidu. Its food delivery business risks becoming a drain on earnings, as many similar companies fight to gain customers by offering big commissions to drivers.
但这些新的突破也伴随着风险。在云计算领域，阿里巴巴不得不与外国对手竞争，在国内也面临着来自搜索引擎百度的挑战。送餐公司可能会侵蚀它的收益，因为很多类似的公司通过为送餐员提供高额佣金的方式，来争夺顾客。
Alibaba has also recently increased its focus on international expansion. While much of its efforts are centered on bringing foreign vendors to sell to Chinese consumers — and in turn spending marketing dollars on Alibaba’s platforms — the company has also made bets on e-commerce in neighboring developing markets.
阿里巴巴最近还加强了对国际扩张的关注。这方面的行动很大程度上是让外国商家将商品卖给中国消费者，反过来把营销经费投给阿里巴巴的平台。与此同时，该公司也把赌注押在了邻近的发展中市场上。
The company invested in the Indian commerce companies Paytm and Snapdeal, and this year, it made its largest overseas acquisition, paying $1 billion to take over Lazada, a popular Southeast Asian shopping website.
公司投资了印度的商务公司Paytm和Snapdeal。今年，阿里巴巴还出资10亿美元，收购了东南亚颇受欢迎的购物网站Lazada。这是它规模最大的一笔海外收购。
