Alibaba quarterly revenue rises on cloud demand, ecommerce growth

China's Alibaba on Wednesday posted a 3% rise in fourth-quarter revenue on robust growth for its cloud computing and AI divisions, while its ecommerce unit benefited from a new round of government subsidies.

US-listed shares of the company were ‌up more ⁠than ⁠2% in premarket trading.

Like other major tech giants, Alibaba too has benefited from soaring business demand for artificial intelligence.


This year it rolled out an enterprise-focused AI platform that coordinates multiple AI agents to handle complex tasks, including editing documents, transcribing meetings and executing research.

Revenue from Alibaba's Cloud Intelligence ⁠Group surged ‌38% to 41.63 billion yuan ($6.13 billion) from a year ago and was a touch ahead of estimates ⁠of 41.27 billion yuan.

Consumer confidence in the world's second-largest economy has been fragile for years due to a prolonged property market downturn, while rising fuel prices due to the Middle East conflict have added to the cost of living.

Still, China's e-commerce sector has seen some relief in the last quarter after ‌a new round of subsidies from local governments that encouraged consumers to trade in electronic goods.

Alibaba reported revenue of 122.22 billion ⁠yuan in its China e-commerce business, topping estimates of 119.85 billion yuan.

Total revenue came in at 243.38 billion yuan ($35.84 billion) for the quarter ended March 31, missing an LSEG consensus estimate of 247.22 billion yuan, as the company's international e-commerce business lagged.

($1 = 6.7904 Chinese yuan renminbi)