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Alibaba likes to advertise its grocery stores. That may puzzle investors, who prefer to focus on the group’s manic revenue growth rather than vegetable margins at its Hema supermarkets. But it is worth remembering that the group ultimately deals in data, not durians.
阿里巴巴(Alibaba)喜欢为其食品杂货商店做广告。这可能会让投资者感到困惑，他们更愿意关注该集团疯狂的收入增长，而不是其盒马鲜生(Hema)超市的蔬菜利润率。但我们有必要记住，阿里巴巴最终经营的是数据，而不是榴莲。
True to form, the Chinese ecommerce company reported a 61 per cent increase in quarterly sales to Rmb55bn ($8.3bn) on Thursday. But margins slipped; before interest, tax and depreciation they were 42 per cent, down 5 percentage points on the previous year. Operating in the real world is expensive.
不出所料地，这家中国电商集团周四公布，季度营收同比增长61%，至550亿元人民币（合83亿美元）。但利润率下滑，调整后息税摊销前利润(EBITA)利润率42%，同比下滑1个百分点。实体运营的成本是高昂的。
Still, offline operations such as grocery stores or vending machines for cars, are experiments in businesses that could ultimately allow the company to collect even more information. They are still small beer next to the core business of renting digital infrastructure to merchants and delivery “partners” to facilitate commerce and consumption. Merchants can use the insights so generated to bid for favourable placement on ecommerce websites like Taobao or Tmall. This activity contributes 86 per cent of revenues.
然而，生鲜食品超市或汽车自动贩卖机等线下业务属于业务尝试，可能最终让该公司得以收集更多信息。与向商户和快递“合作伙伴”出租数字基础设施、促进商业和消费的核心业务相比，这些显得微不足道。商户可以利用由此洞悉的信息在淘宝(Taobao)或天猫(Tmall)等电商网站竞购有利的铺位。这些业务占到了阿里巴巴营收的86%。
Alibaba is a privately owned company, but has nevertheless become a sort of national champion. Its business model is directly aligned with the state’s plans for a more innovative and consumption driven economy. Western social media groups can only dream of being able to collect similarly detailed spending and behavioural data. The group’s servers contain a trove of accurate and timely information about the state of the Chinese economy that is far superior to the statistics that low-level bureaucrats submit. And due to its purely commercial focus Alibaba does not risk running afoul of China’s stringent censorship rules.
阿里巴巴是一家民营企业，却变成了类似国家冠军企业的巨擘。其业务模式与政府打造更多由创新和消费拉动的经济的计划完全一致。西方社交媒体集团只能梦想着能够收集如此详尽的支出和行为数据了。阿里巴巴的服务器含有大量有关中国经济状况的准确且及时的信息，远远优于低层官员提交的统计数据。由于只关注商业，阿里巴巴没有与中国严格的审查规定发生冲突的风险。
A captive market and a nod from the party all but assure its continued growth. Foreign markets will be much more tricky. But when you are already top dog in the world’s biggest retail market, that is a worry for another day.
阿里巴巴对市场的控制，再加上共产党的点头支持，几乎保证了阿里巴巴的持续增长。外国市场要困难得多。但如果你已经是这个世界最大零售市场的领头羊了，那么这种担心就是以后的事情了。
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Lex专栏是由FT评论家联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析
