Alibaba quarterly revenue disappoints, shares fall

Alibaba’s quarterly revenue fell short of analysts’ expectations, showing signs of a slowdown in the Chinese e-commerce company’s scorching growth.

Alibaba’s shares fell 7 per cent in premarket trading on Thursday.

Revenue rose 40 per cent to $4.22 billion in the December quarter, but missed the average analyst estimate of $4.45 billion.

Alibaba's second quarterly report card since its record-breaking $25 billion IPO still underscored how it has managed to outpace global rivals Amazon. com and eBay by dint of its 80 per cent share of the Chinese online commerce market.

Ebay managed just single-digit net revenue growth in percentage terms in the US holiday shopping quarter.

Gross merchandise value (GMV), or the sum of all Alibaba’s online commerce transactions, rose 49 per cent to $127 billion. Mobile GMV accounted for 42 per cent of total GMV, up from 36 percent in the September quarter.

Still, revenue growth slipped as sales through mobiles, which typically have lower margins, accounted for a bigger slice of total sales than in the previous quarter.

Margins on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization bounced back after a decline in the previous quarter to 58 per cent from 50.5 per cent in the July-September period.

The number of annual active buyers on Alibaba’s various services, another closely watched metric, rose to 334 million from 307 million in the September quarter.

Alibaba, which already handles more e-commerce than Amazon and eBay combined, has said that there is ample room to grow in its home market.

The company reported more than $9 billion in sales on Singles’ Day in November.

Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was $957 million, or 37 cents per share, in the quarter ended December 31st.

Excluding items, the company earned 81 cents per share.

Analysts on average were expecting earnings of 75 cents per share.

Reuters