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China's biggest e-commerce company posted quarterly revenues of
$3.27 billion, below an expected $3.39 billion, according to a
Thomson Reuters SmartEstimate poll of 28 analysts.
The drop in revenue growth came as gross merchandise volume (GMV)
-- the total value of goods transacted across Alibaba's
platforms -- rose 34 percent to 673 billion yuan ($105 billion),
also rising at its slowest pace in more than three years.
Alibaba, which has a market value of $194 billion, is branching
out from its core online-only shopping platforms in a bid to
stem a slowdown in revenue growth and the total value of goods
transacted over its websites.
"(We) made significant progress monetizing our mobile traffic,
with our mobile revenue exceeding 50 percent of our total China
commerce retail revenue for the first time," said Maggie Wu,
Alibaba's chief financial officer, in a press release on
Wednesday.
On Monday, Alibaba said it would invest $4.6 billion in
bricks-and-mortar retailer Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd, a deal
that could give it more traction in logistics and electronics,
areas in which smaller but growing rival JD.com specializes.
Alibaba's strategic priorities are internationalization, beating
out competition in mobile, expanding into rural China and
investing in cloud computing, Chief Executive Daniel Zhang said
in Wednesday's release.
The company's non-GAAP net income was $1.5 billion for its first
quarter for the financial year ended March, 2016, up 30 percent
year-on-year.
The company also announced a $4 billion, two-year share
repurchase program.
Alibaba shares have fallen 26 percent since the beginning of the
year, and were trading down 6.9 percent before the market open
in New York on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Paul Carsten; Editing by Mark Potter)
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