Alibaba names new CEO, still successful despite recent controversies

Alibaba has been under strict scrutiny from both the U.S. and China for questionable business practices and potential ties to counterfeiting. However, there are those who simply laugh in the face of controversy and keep moving; those like Alibaba. The Chinese e-commerce company has reported another quarter of strong gains.

While their net profit declined 49 percent to 463 million dollars, their revenue rose 45 percent to 2.81 billion dollars. Annual active buyers increased to 350 million people, an increase of 37 percent year-over-year. In addition to reporting an impressive fiscal quarter, On May 10, Daniel Zhang, COO of Alibaba, took over as CEO of the company.

While many would be afraid to take over a company that is facing controversy, Zhang takes over Alibaba with pride, perhaps due to their increasing commercial success. Zhang will be succeeding Jonathan Lu, who will remain on the board of Alibaba as Vice Chairman. In a statement, Zhang said, "management transition is part of our progress to build an e-commerce infrastructure of the future.”

For eight years, Zhang has worked for Alibaba in various different roles. In August 2007, he joined Alibaba as Chief Financial Officer of Taobao Marketplace, the company currently riddled in scandal for counterfeiting, and in September 2013 he became Alibaba's Chief Operating Officer. He was the signature man behind "Singles' Day", the world's largest online shopping event taking place today.

Alibaba reports 45 percent increase in revenue

Zhang's big project now that he is officially CEO will be to take on the challenge of mobile commerce. While it seemed like e-commerce was the future of retail for a while there, mobile commerce is certainly giving e-commerce a run for its money. Expanding their mobile commerce power was one of the big things that executives called for during the company's earnings call.

Alibaba's mobile commerce apps were a large contributing factor to their recent financial growth, as well as a surge in the amount of rural buyers they have. Also, Tmall Global, the e-commerce platform that allows retailers without business licenses to operate in China, has been a major success as well. The company has currently declined to state whether their controversy over Taobao selling counterfeit products has had any affect on their sales at all.

Alibaba has even gone as far as to defend Taobao, saying that they are important to the growth of small and medium sized Chinese businesses. A hiring freeze took place at the end of last January, but Alibaba has ensured us that it is all just standard protocol to encourage innovation and efficiency according to Maggie Wu, Alibaba's Chief Financial Officer. Despite controversy, Alibaba certainly looks like the company to watch in 2015, because their success is going virtually unrivaled.