Chinese technology and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) yesterday reported robust sales growth in its latest quarter, beating analyst expectations as Beijing looks to revive faith in the private sector.
The Hangzhou-based firm operates some of China’s most widely used online shopping platforms, making its performance a bellwether for consumer sentiment.
The company is enjoying a comeback with its share price soaring so far this year and legendary co-founder Jack Ma (馬雲) being pictured with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after spending several years out of the public eye.
Photo: Adek Berry, AFP
The charismatic billionaire once spoke boldly about the shortcomings of China’s financial and regulatory systems but has held his tongue in recent years following Xi’s sweeping crackdown on the tech sector and the scuttling of Alibaba affiliate Ant Group Co’s (螞蟻集團) initial public offering.
Alibaba said yesterday that revenue rose eight percent to 280 billion yuan (US$38.4 billion) in the three months through December, exceeding the 277 billion yuan estimated by a Bloomberg pool of analysts.
The firm’s fastest pace of revenue growth in more than a year reflects a turnaround in its commerce business and big strides into the critical field of artificial intelligence (AI)
The cloud division, which houses the company’s diverse AI-related projects and hosts computing power for external clients, grew revenue 13 percent to US$4.3 billion. International commerce sales — driven by overseas marketplaces such as AliExpress (全球速賣通) and Trendyol — surged 32 percent in the December quarter, the company said.
Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders jumped to nearly 49 billion yuan, a rise of 239 percent, it said.
"This quarter’s results demonstrated substantial progress in our ’user first, AI-driven’ strategies and the re-accelerated growth of our core businesses," Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu (吳泳銘) said.
"We will continue to execute against our strategic priorities in e-commerce and cloud computing, including further investment to drive long-term growth," he added.
Alibaba has benefitted from a strong rally among Chinese technology stocks and has seen its shares soar over 40 percent so far this year.
The strong upturn has owed much to investor optimism over Chinese breakthroughs in AI, with insurgent firm DeepSeek (深度求索) causing a global stir last month with an AI chatbot that seemingly matches US peers at a fraction of the cost.
Alibaba is one of many Chinese technology firms racing to get ahead in the AI space. Last month, it unveiled its latest Qwen (通義千問) AI model that has performed well in benchmark tests.
Alibaba is working with Apple Inc to incorporate its AI technology into Chinese iPhones, the firm said earlier this month.
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