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China's Alibaba Q4 net profit falls 57 pct

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CIOL Bureau
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HONG KONG: China's top e-commerce firm Alibaba said on Thursday fourth quarter net profit dropped 57 percent from the year-ago period, as rising marketing costs to counter falling global exports and imports squeezed margins.

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Alibaba, whose online site connects traders of goods into and out of China, earned 199.4 million yuan or 3.94 cents per share in the October-December period, down from profits of 466 million yuan a year earlier and 308.6 million yuan in the third quarter.

The earnings result lagged an average net profit of 281 million yuan forecast by three analysts polled by Reuters.

Shares in Alibaba rose 3.8 percent on Thursday ahead of the results announcement. The stock lost 20.5 percent of its value in the fourth quarter of 2008, in line with the slide in Hong Kong's benchmark index in the same period.

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