China’s soaring e-commerce market has fuelled an increase in Alibaba’s net income of 171.1 per cent in the fourth quarter.

Alibaba booked a net profit of US$642.2 million for the quarter to December on revenue of US$1.84 million.

“The results were better than we expected, probably because of stronger revenue from commissions,” said Alex Wang, a Beijing-based analyst at Internet consulting group iResearch. “This will be positive for their anticipated IPO.”

According to Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma, Alibaba may go public within five years. Some industry watchers say it could fetch a valuation as high as Facebook’s US$100 billion.

Alibaba offers several e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Tmall.com.