U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba rose 1.3% in pre-market trading
after the company flagged an increase of $25 billion to its
share repurchase program through the end of March 2027.
Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was 14.4
million yuan ($2 million) and net income was 10.7 million yuan
($1.51 million), a decrease of 77%.
Alibaba announced the split of its business into six units last
March in a transition overseen by CEO Eddie Wu and Chairman Joe
Tsai, both Alibaba co-founders.
The company said in December that Wu, group CEO since September,
would directly oversee its domestic e-commerce arm, increasing
his focus on the core divisions of the company as it combats
slower earnings growth and rising competition.
"Our top priority is to reignite the growth of our core
businesses, e-commerce and cloud computing," Wu said on
Wednesday.
Alibaba is under pressure as consumers in China, the world's
second-largest economy, have been cutting costs in response to a
stuttering post-COVID recovery, boosting low-cost domestic
e-commerce players such as PDD Holdings.
PDD, which owns Pinduoduo and overseas-focused platform Temu,
soared past Alibaba on Dec. 1 to become the most valuable
Chinese e-commerce company after Morgan Stanley downgraded
Alibaba on concerns over slower turnaround in its cloud business
and customer management revenue.
Alibaba scrapped plans to spin off its cloud business last year,
citing uncertainties over U.S. curbs on exports to China of
chips used in artificial intelligence applications, in a big
blow to its market value at the time. Last week, sources told
Reuters that Alibaba was looking to sell a number of consumer
sector assets, including its grocery business Freshippo, which
has been locked in a price war with Walmart's membership chain
Sam's Club, leading both sides to cut prices on popular items.
A Freshippo spokesperson had denied the reports of a potential
sale.
Alibaba's International Digital Commerce segment, which operates
various retail and wholesale marketplaces including AliExpress
and Alibaba.com., performed strongly, with AliExpress orders
rising 60% on the year.
($1 = 7.1941 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Harshita Varghese, Savyata Mishra and Casey Hall;
Editing by Himani Sarkar, Sriraj Kalluvila and Emelia
Sithole-Matarise)
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