Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders surged 58 per cent to 43.9 billion yuan (US$6 billion) in the three months that ended in September, beating analysts’ estimate of 25.7 billion yuan. Revenue rose 5 per cent to 236.5 billion yuan, slightly missing the 239.4 billion yuan expected by analysts, according to a Bloomberg survey.
“Growth in our cloud business accelerated from prior quarters, with revenues from public cloud products growing in double digits and AI-related product revenue delivering triple-digit growth,” said Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming.
“We are more confident in our core businesses than ever and will continue to invest in supporting long-term growth. Our other businesses continued to improve their operating efficiency, with most of them continuing to increase their profitability or reduce losses,” Wu said.
Revenue for the Cloud Intelligence Group, one of the company’s most important growth engines, rose 7 per cent to 29.6 billion yuan. That beat the 6 per cent increase in the previous quarter, marking the unit’s fastest quarterly growth over the past two years.
The results come as the Hangzhou-based company executes Wu’s “user first” and “AI driven” strategy to navigate China’s challenging economy and a brutal e-commerce price war.
It has also stepped up efforts to enhance monetisation of its merchant services in past months, with the launch of the paid digital marketing tool Quanzhantui in April and a new technology service fee for Taobao and Tmall merchants in September.
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