Alibaba's revenue of $36.7bn was 5% up on last year, which was lower than analysts expected. Alibaba's China e-commerce platforms, Taobao and Tmall, saw revenue rise 2% to $18.2bn. A new management team is in place to manage this area of the business.
The much smaller Cloud Intelligence business saw growth of 3%, where the group's reducing exposure to less-lucrative project-based contracts. The international ecommerce business grew by 44%, led by AliExpress.
Despite the higher revenue, operating profit fell 36% to $3.2bn, and free cash flow fell 31% to $8.0bn. There was net cash of $69bn as at the end of the period.
The group increased its share buyback programme by $25bn, taking the total to $35.3bn.
The shares fell 1.5% following the announcement.
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Our view
The last set of quarterly results has done little to revive investor enthusiasm.
Alibaba is China's largest e-commerce business, and the economic alarm bells are well and truly ringing in the land of the red dragon. Other challenges to note are stiff competition in the sector and a government tech-crackdown.
The path to a sustained demand rebound is unclear. And that's partly why the group's making inroads to spin off various businesses, which could unlock value. This includes separate IPOs of its grocery and logistics divisions. We are however relieved to hear that the cloud business is no longer on the auction lot. This would have marked the loss of a growth opportunity. The wider attempts to streamline the business are still the right moves in our view.
The Chinese giant is responsible for multiple businesses across e-commerce, digital media and entertainment, logistics and cloud computing, to name just a few.
The biggest segment, by some way, is China Commerce. Which includes Taobao, China's largest shopping website, and TMall, which sells higher-end and branded goods. Recent marketing initiatives have helped a bit, but we have some concerns as to how long this can offset the impact of a faltering economy. Cost cutting has gone some way to improve profitability but most of the recent savings have been made in product development, not an area we believe should be neglected for long if it wants to maintain its competitive edge.
Alibaba also houses the impressive AliExpress, which connects global consumers to a vast marketplace, where they can buy directly from manufacturers all over the world. We think the international markets represent an exciting opportunity for the Group. It's been doubling down efforts to expand in South Asia, an area with good growth potential. And so far, the Group's doing a good job at expanding overseas.
A shining positive is Alibaba's cash generation - it has billions of free cash flow pumping round the business each quarter. This gives it enormous flexibility in tough times, as well as the ability to throw money at expansion efforts. It also allows potential for substantial share buybacks but remember no shareholder returns are guaranteed.
If international expansion efforts take off at the required speed, Alibaba could unlock enormous growth, but that remains a very big 'if'. It's still dwarfed by the Chinese operations, which we think will be a bigger driver of sentiment in an increasingly challenging short-term. Another potential catalyst to look out for is movement, if any, in external fundraising efforts from the newly independent business units.
Alibaba key facts
All ratios are sourced from Refinitiv. Please remember yields are variable and not a reliable indicator of future income. Keep in mind key figures shouldn't be looked at on their own - it's important to understand the big picture.
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