ALIBABA.COM suffered a 16-percent tumble in net profit in the first quarter of this year from a year earlier as the Chinese e-commerce company boosted spending and investments, which offset a revenue rise.

The net income for the first three months totaled 253.4 million yuan (US$37.1 million), a 16-percent drop from 301.7 million yuan in the year-earlier period, the company said in a statement to Hong Kong's stock exchange late Wednesday. Its revenue hit 807 million yuan, a 19-percent jump from 680 million yuan in the previous year.

By March 31, a total of 40.3 million users had registered on the company's online market, representing a 36-percent rise from a year earlier, or 6-percent climb from the fourth quarter of 2008.

The firm also saw an increase in paying members to 481,575 in the last quarter, a surge of 47 percent year on year.

"We are seeing clear trends in growing penetration of e-commerce despite weak economic conditions and we'll be committed to executing strategies to drive customer penetration and retention," said David Wei, CEO of Alibaba.com.

The revenue from the portal's export-oriented International Marketplace division, mainly made up of sales to Chinese exporters posting products on its Website, rose 8.9 percent to 505.6 million yuan in the first quarter and 3 percent quarter on quarter. But this slowed from the full-year growth rate of 23 percent in 2008 due to the global recession.

The revenue from its China marketplace hit 301 million yuan, a 39-percent year-on-year growth but a 5-percent quarter-on-quarter drop.