Vipshop's Q1 revenue up 126%

New York Stock Exchange listed Vipshop Holdings Limited, China's leading online discount retailer for brands, saw its first quarter net revenue increase by 125.9 percent year-on-year to reach $701.9 million, according to the company's first quarter report released on Wednesday.

The number of Vipshop's active customers increased 165.1 percent to 7.4 million, while the number was a mere 2.8 million during the same period last year. The company received a total of 20.2 million orders in the first three months this year, up 129.3 percent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, gross margin of Vipshop increased to 24.9 percent from the 23.4 percent in the prior year period. Net income attributable to Vipshop's shareholders surged 355.3 percent to $26.6 million. Net income margin increased to 3.8 percent from the 1.9 percent in the same period last year.

"We believe that our ongoing investments in warehousing expansion and management will continue to help us improve sales capacity and reduce our operating costs, providing a strong foundation for our continued growth over the coming years," said Yang Donghao, chief financial officer of Vipshop.

Vipshop announced in mid-Feb that it has acquired a 75 percent equity interest in Lefeng.com Limited from Ovation Entertainment Limited. Lefeng owns and operates the online retail business conducted through lefeng.com, an online retail platform specializing in the selling of cosmetics and fashion products in China. The total consideration payable by Vipshop is about $132.5 million, including cash payment and financing in connection with assumed liabilities.

"As the integration of our strategic acquisition of Lefeng commences, we expect to benefit from synergies associated with streamlining our comprehensive cosmetics offerings and cross selling to our customer bases and lowering our combined operating expenses," said Eric Shen, chairman and chief executive officer of Vipshop.

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