Alibaba sees most profitable year since 2021 amid a refocus on e-commerce, AI businesses and rising competition at home
- Alibaba net income rose 10 per cent to US$11 billion in the 2023 financial year, the first annual results since co-founder Joe Tsai took over as chairman
- The strong annual results come despite declining profit in the final quarter, which saw non-GAAP net income fall 11 per cent
The March quarter results were slightly weaker than the year as a whole. The Hangzhou-based company, which owns the South China Morning Post, grew 7 per cent year on year to 221.9 billion yuan in revenue for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of 219.8 billion yuan. Growth was faster than the 5 per cent seen in the December quarter.
“This quarter’s results demonstrate that our strategies are working and we are returning to growth,” Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming said in a press release on Tuesday. “Our China and international commerce businesses realised double-digit year-over-year [gross merchandises value] growth through our focus on the customer experience. We are also excited by the accelerated growth of customers and cloud computing revenues related to our AI products.”
Net income was 3.3 billion yuan in the three months ended March, worse than the 14.5 billion yuan expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Alibaba said it was primarily attributable to “a net loss from our investments in publicly traded companies during the quarter”.
