SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd posted a 171.1 percent jump in net profitin the fourth quarter as its revenue rose 84 percent, according to a regulatory filing by major shareholder Yahoo Inc.

For the quarter ending December 2012, net income attributable to Alibaba Group was $642.2 million while its revenue for the period was $1.84 billion, the filing said.

Yahoo, which owns about 24 percent of Alibaba, reported the privately held online shopping giant's results as part of a document filed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Industry watchers widely expect Alibaba to seek an initial public offering as early as this year and some say the company could fetch a valuation as high as Facebook Inc's $100 billion.

Late last month, Alibaba bought an 18 percent stake in Sina Corp's popular microblogging platform, Weibo, for $586 million.

For Alibaba's financial year ending September 30, the company reported a 78 percent rise in revenue to $4.1 billion while net profit attributable to the company rose 80.8 percent to $484.5 million. Alibaba's October-to-December period was previously the first quarter but that was recently changed.

Alibaba is China's largest e-commerce company offering platforms where millions of Chinese shop for everything from kitchen appliances to clothes.