Alibaba Quarterly Profit Sinks Despite Rise in Sales

By Tracy Qu

Alibaba Group's profit sank in the latest quarter, even as revenue rose on higher sales in its key e-commerce, cloud and logistics businesses.

The Chinese company said Tuesday that net income in its fiscal fourth quarter ended March fell 86% from a year earlier to 3.27 billion yuan ($452.1 million), well short of expectations for CNY15.27 billion in a FactSet poll of analysts. Alibaba said the bottom line was hurt by a net loss in investments during the quarter due to mark-to-market changes.

Adjusted net profit, which excludes the effects of share-based compensation expenses, investment gains and losses, some impairments and other items, fell 11% to CNY24.42 billion.

Quarterly revenue rose 6.6% to CNY221.87 billion, slightly beating analysts' estimates of CNY220.62 billion.

Sales at Alibaba's core domestic e-commerce business, Taobao and Tmall Group, rose 4% from a year earlier to CNY93.22 billion, while its cloud-computing unit posted a 3% increase in sales to CNY25.595 billion.

Alibaba said its board approved a $4.0 billion dividend for the 2024 fiscal year.

Write to Tracy Qu at tracy.qu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 14, 2024 07:16 ET (11:16 GMT)

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