Photo Credit: Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group reported earnings for the quarter ending September 30 on Friday. Shortly afterward, Alibaba Group’s CEO, Eddie Wu, addressed investors and analysts on an earnings call.

This quarter, our core business segments maintained steady growth, guided by our “user-first, AI-driven” strategy. Purchase frequency continued to drive GMV growth on our platform, with interoperability initiatives adding new growth impetus. Recently, monthly active consumers on Taobao and Tmall reached a new all-time high. Alibaba International Digital Commerce revenue growth remained strong. Cloud revenue excluding Alibaba-consolidated subsidiaries grew steadily, with AI products contributing an increasing share. Across segments, we progressively enhanced operational efficiency and monetization capabilities, and further improved the performance of loss-making businesses.

User Growth Momentum

For Taobao and Tmall Group, we stick to our “user-first” strategy. During this quarter, purchase frequency continued to drive GMV growth, with continued improvement in overall user experience. Our loyal customers, represented by 88VIP members, continued to increase, reaching 46 million by quarter-end.

In terms of monetization progress, we implemented an industry-standard 0.6% software service fee this quarter, while providing certain rebates to SME merchants. Merchant adoption of Alimama’s “Quanzhantui” marketing tool continued to rise, contributing to marketing revenue growth.

We concluded a successful 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, during which Taobao and Tmall achieved robust growth in GMV, with the number of monthly active consumers back to growth and achieving a record high. We believe that the growth of purchasers will continue, and user growth and retention will subsequently bring more consumption upside in the future. We are optimistic about the government’s macro stimulus policies and are confident in their positive long-term economic impact. While e-commerce competition remains intense, we will continue to invest in core user groups and product categories, increase investment in new users, and improve user retention. Implementation of these initiatives will drive the sustainable growth of our platform.

Acceleration of AI Growth

In our cloud segment, we continued to optimize the revenue mix while advancing our integrated “Cloud + AI” development strategy. Alibaba Cloud revenue, excluding Alibaba-consolidated subsidiaries, grew 7% this quarter, a steady improvement from the June quarter. The revenue growth was driven by double-digit public cloud growth. In particular, revenue from AI-related products maintained triple-digit growth for the fifth consecutive quarter, increasing its share in public cloud revenue.

During this quarter, Alibaba Cloud held the 16th Apsara Conference, and launched a suite of competitive technologies and products. We believe the AI era is just beginning, and we are still in the early stage of AGI transformation. Looking ahead, AI’s potential extends beyond mobile screens—it is poised to reshape the digital world and ultimately transform all industries in the physical world. As a leading Cloud service provider for AI in China, we will continue to invest in advanced technology and AI infrastructure while optimizing operational efficiency. This will enable us to deliver more reliable and cost-effective AI technologies and products across industries. We believe that as AI penetration grows, Alibaba Cloud’s cloud computing and AI-related products will become the foundational infrastructure that supports the development across industries.

Confident in the future

In international e-commerce, AIDC achieved 29% revenue growth this quarter, maintaining strong growth momentum.

This quarter, Cainiao further strengthened synergies with other businesses in our group and significantly advanced its highly digitalized global logistics network. We will continue to invest in core capabilities and promote front- and back-end synergies. This quarter, we also narrowed losses in both Local Services and Digital Media and Entertainment, demonstrating steady and progressive improvement in operational efficiency.

Despite intensifying e-commerce competition in recent months, Taobao and Tmall achieved breakthroughs in core user retention and new user growth. Our cloud business maintained rapid growth in AI-related products. Other businesses continued to improve their operating efficiency as planned while achieving business growth. We will continue investing in core businesses and improving the quality of operations, and we are fully confident in the future.

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