Alibaba Cloud Growth Slows to 36%, Net Income Plunges 67% on AI Spending
BABA sits 36% above its 52-week low of $91.99.
Summary
Alibaba's latest quarterly results show cloud revenue growth decelerating to 36% YoY from 38% last quarter, while net income collapsed 67% to RMB16.32B as heavy AI and quick-commerce spending bites. The company also launched Qwen3.8-27B, an on-device AI model, and agreed to sell gaming unit Lingxi to Trustar Capital for $1–2B. The profit plunge confirms the aggressive AI investment strategy is eroding near-term earnings, though AI-related sales grew triple digits for a 10th straight quarter. The Lingxi divestiture is a modest capital recycling move, not a major strategic shift. Watch for further details on the Lingxi sale closing and any update on the Pentagon designation lawsuit.
Updates
· SEC 6-K — Alibaba's 6-K attaches the full earnings release with segment details: AI Cloud and Compute Services revenue RMB48,437M, up 45%; AI-related product revenue RMB12,376M, triple-digit growth for 12th consecutive quarter; Qwen3.8-Max launched with 2.4T parameters.
· Dow Jones Newswires — Net profit fell 76% to 10.54 billion yuan, missing expectations; capex jumped 75% to 67.68 billion yuan; adjusted net profit fell 38% to 20.715 billion yuan. Lingxi Games sale to Trustar Capital is for over $1.5 billion.
· Reuters — Q1 revenue was 268.95 billion yuan, up 9% and above the 268.88 billion yuan consensus. AI cloud and compute services revenue rose 45%, and AI labs and applications revenue rose 16%.
At the time of this announcement, BABA was trading at $124.86 on NYSE in the Technology sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $292.9B. The 52-week trading range was $91.99 to $192.67. This news item was assessed with negative market sentiment and an importance score of 8 out of 10. Source: Wiseek News.