Alibaba posts solid 70% income growth in latest quarter

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Alibaba posted a 70% year-over-year surge in income from operations, landing at US$5.86 billion for the quarter ended June 30.

The Chinese tech giant attributed the growth to its recent restructuring, which has started to “unleash new energy across our business,” outgoing chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang said in a statement.

Alibaba’s revenue grew 14% in the latest quarter compared to the same period last year. Most notably, revenue from its international digital commerce arm was up 41% year over year to US$3 billion in the quarter.

However, this segment – which houses Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol, and Daraz – still recorded a loss of US$58 million in the quarter.

Last month, Tech in Asia first reported that Alibaba injected another US$845.44 million into Lazada amid growing competition in Southeast Asia, especially coming from TikTok Shop.

For this quarter, the Chinese tech giant noted that both Lazada and Trendyol have significantly improved their margins.

Meanwhile, cash from Alibaba’s operating activities also increased 34%, while free cash flow – a measurement of liquidity – jumped 76%.

Alibaba is also one of the biggest tech players gunning for AI dominance in China. It said its open-source platform for deep learning models already has hosted over 1,000 AI models and recorded over 45 million downloads as of July 2023.

In June, Zhang announced he would step down from the CEO post to focus on Alibaba Cloud, which is aiming for a public listing soon.

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