Alibaba’s quarterly revenue misses expectations as spending slows

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd 9988.HK on Thursday posted a smaller-than-expected rise in quarterly revenue as the COVID-19 pandemic and a worsening economic outlook stifled consumer spending.

Retail spending in China has fallen this year amid consumer frustration with the government’s strict zero-containment policy for COVID-19, which has led to frequent blackouts and hurt economic activity.

Alibaba also had to contend with stiff competition from Pinduoduo PDD.O and ByteDance’s Douyin – China’s version of Tiktok – which have expanded their e-commerce offerings and captured more market share.

The company also has yet to fully recover from a regulatory crackdown in the technology sector that has curtailed growth opportunities.

Revenue rose 3% to 207.18 billion yuan ($28.96 billion) in the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with Refinitiv’s consensus estimate of 208.62 billion yuan from 25 analysts.

Alibaba, which operates China’s biggest online platforms Tmall and Taobao and owns a wide range of businesses from logistics to cloud services, reported a net loss attributable to shareholders of 20.56 billion yuan in the quarter.

Excluding one-time items, Alibaba earned 12.92 yuan per US depositary share.