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By Xie Fang

Suning.com (stock code: 002024), one of China's most popular online 3C product (computer, communication and consumer electronics) retailers, released its audited semi-annual financial report recently, revealing a nearly twenty-fold profit growth during the first half of this year.

The company, the stocks of which are included in the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Emerging Markets Index, generated a total of roughly 110.68 billion yuan (15.22 U.S. dollars) in operating revenue during the reporting period, a year-on-year increase of 32.16 percent.

More strikingly, by selling some of its shares in the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, the company saw its net profit skyrocket by as much as 1,959.41 percent to more than 6 billion yuan (8.79 U.S. dollars) by the end of June.

The company points out in the report that it actually earned about 402 million yuan (58.9 million U.S. dollars) in net profit during the period after leaving out the profit made from the share sale, which means a year-on-year growth of 37.95 percent.

The company's basic earnings per share jumped by 1,965.81 percent to 0.6466 yuan while its weighted average rate of return on equity also climbed by 7.13 percentage points to 7.57 percent, demonstrating a significantly enhanced profitability.

During the reporting period, the company saw a rapid growth in both its online and offline retail business, with the number of monthly active users of its App rising by 64.34 percent year over year and the revenue from its brick-and-mortar storefronts increasing by 5.26 percent.

Apart from its retail business, the company also made substantial investments in its logistics business which saw an up to 118 percent increase in revenue over the first half of 2018.