Alibaba shares jump as revenues rise

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Shares in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba rose 7.5% after it reported strong financial results and appointed a new chief executive.

Alibaba's revenue rose 45% to 17.43bn yuan ($2.8bn; £1.8bn) in the three months to March, beating expectations.

The company also announced that Daniel Zhang, currently Alibaba's chief operating officer, would take over as chief executive from Jonathan Lu.

Jonathan Lu will remain on the board of directors as vice chairman.

Daniel Zhang is one of the founding members of the Alibaba Partnership and has been with the company for eight years.

Alibaba has 80% of Chinese online shopping, and operates its most popular online platform, Taobao.

The company said that the number of active annual users had risen by 37% to 350 million.

The results are the second since Alibaba's record-breaking $25bn flotation in New York in September.

Its share price soared from $94 on listing to $119 in less than two months. It fell back to below $80 recently but ended the day at $86.

The group, founded by entrepreneur and billionaire Jack Ma, announced a hiring freeze last month, saying the company was growing too fast.

Alibaba has spent heavily on US internet companies. It recently invested $200m in messaging app Snapchat.

Chief financial officer Maggie Wu said Alibaba expected its growth on spending on new investments to outstrip growth in overall revenues.