Alibaba reports revenue surge in fourth-quarter report

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba on Thursday reported a 40-percent growth in its fourth-quarter revenue to reach 26 billion yuan (about 4.27 bln U.S. dollars).

The Hangzhou-based company, which operates China's largest online shopping sites Tmall and Taobao, said sales on its platforms reached 787 billion yuan in the fourth quarter.

And 42 percent of such sales were done on mobile devices, suggesting the rising popularity of shopping on smartphones and tablet PCs in China.

Its total sales last year hit 2.3 trillion yuan, marking an yearly rise of 47 percent.

Alibaba said active buyers on its e-commerce platforms increased by 45 percent to 334 million in 2014, and the growth stood out in China's third- and fourth-tier cities.

The quarterly report came as the company was entangled in a row with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), the country's commerce regulator that issued a report on Jan. 23 ranking Taobao the lowest in terms of certified product rate.

Taobao fired back on Tuesday and said it was unfairly treated.

It claimed the inspection was flawed in logic and contradicted previous data, pointing out the authority only made a sample of 51 items which cannot represent the enormous trade volume on the platform.

"We support the authority placing strict inspection on us, but we also feel obliged to speak out the truth when we were treated neither properly nor fairly," Joe Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba, said Thursday.

Tsai also said the company never demanded a delay of the SAIC report, responding to suspicion that SAIC postponed the release of the report to avoid affecting the company's New York stock market listing in September last year.