Last Thursday, the all-mighty Chinese multinational technology company missed revenue and earnings expectations for the September quarter. Moreover, Alibaba Group Holdings Limited (NYSE:BABA) warned of weaker growth this year as China's economy slows and Beijing continues its regulatory crackdown with the latest fine hitting the company over the weekend.

Fiscal Second-Quarter Figures

For the quarter ended in September, the company's earnings per share declined 38% YoY as it earned 11.20 yuan per share, below the estimated 12.36 yuan. Its EBITDA fell 27% YoY to 34.84 billion, but this is largely due to investments into new businesses.

But overall revenue grew 29% YoY, as it amounted to 200.69 billion yuan which translates to $31.4 billion) but still below the estimated 204.93 billion yuan.

The revenue of its core commerce business expanded 31% YoY but also missed expectations as the segment generated 171.17 billion yuan. Cloud computing, one of its most important assets that the company is building its future upon, grew 33% YoY to 20 billion yuan with adjusted EBITA for the segment amounting to 396 million yuan. This is a great improvement from the 567 million yuan loss it made in last year's comparable quarter.

However, the largest portion of the company's sales comes from customer management revenue (CMR) and that segment grew only 3% YoY due to slow growth of sales on its platform. As China's economy slowed down, so did consumption. Besides the slowing market conditions, Alibaba is also facing an increasingly crowded e-commerce market in China.

An Increasingly Crowded Market

Fines

Outlook

The company slashed its current fiscal year revenue guidance from expecting revenue to amount 930 billion yuan, which would have been about 29.5% YoY growth to now expecting only 20% and 23% YoY growth.

CEO Daniel Zhang emphasized that Alibaba continues to firmly invest into its three strategic pillars to establish solid foundations for long-term sustainable growth. Alibaba is betting on domestic consumption, globalization, and cloud computing to create firm grounds for a more sustainable future, but regulatory action threatens to derail its growth prospects. Only time will tell if the e-commerce tech giant can rise from these unfavorable circumstances.

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