Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding saw revenue rise 8 per cent in the December quarter to beat analysts’ estimates, as the company’s cloud computing services unit posted strong growth.
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The Hangzhou-based tech conglomerate on Thursday reported total revenue of 280.2 billion yuan (US$38.4 billion) in the three months ended December 31, compared with the consensus estimate of 277.4 billion yuan from a Bloomberg survey of analysts. The company has maintained single-digit revenue growth for the sixth consecutive quarter.
Profit surged 239 per cent to 48.9 billion yuan during the quarter, from 14.4 billion yuan a year ago, primarily on the back of “the increase in income from operations, mark-to-market changes from our equity investments, and the increase in share of results of equity method investees”, Alibaba said.
That was better than the 37.7 billion yuan quarterly profit expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
“This quarter’s results demonstrated substantial progress in our ‘user first, AI-driven’ strategies and the re-accelerated growth of our core businesses,” said Eddie Wu Yongming, chief executive of Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post.
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Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares slid 2.6 per cent to close at HK$120.90, retreating from a three-year high before its earnings report. The firm added more than US$110 billion to its market value amid the euphoria surrounding Chinese start-up DeepSeek’s recent artificial intelligence (AI) breakthrough.