Alibaba shares soar, despite weaker balance sheet revenue: what buoyed investors

In the conclusions of the analysts it is highlighted that there were bad results for the core business and that national and international uncertainty continues to affect the businessalong with what the cloud does not meet expectations.

But there were two details that investors saw as positive: the company improved margins thanks to better efficiency in all segments, and they announced share repurchases. The Asian giant announced approval for a share repurchase for US$15 billion and extended the repurchase until 2025.

The context that Alibaba has been facing

In the previous quarter, Alibaba had posted zero revenue growth for the first time in its history. Since the end of 2020, China has taken a hard line against certain practices of digital giants regarding the collection of personal data and competition. These measures caused the sector to lose billions of dollars in market capitalization.

In parallel, China has been fighting a recurrence of the Covid-19 epidemic for several months and weak household spending is hurting e-commerce companies.

sign of hardship, Alibaba posted lower-than-usual profits this year after Singles’ Day, a hugely popular trade event in China that generates huge online sales, ended on November 11.

For years, these sales were accompanied by an intense media campaign by Alibaba, with a giant screen that shows the evolution of the amount of transactions carried out on its platforms.

Alibaba also recorded a 1% year-on-year drop in its sales in China during its last financial year. Internationally, however, its sales increased by 4% in the year. Showing the difficulties, the Hangzhou group (eastern China) laid off almost 15,000 employees, according to figures obtained by comparing its workforce with the same quarter last year.