Alibaba Revenue Beats Estimates as Signs of a Comeback Mount
(Bloomberg) -- Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. posted its fastest pace of revenue growth in more than a year, reflecting a turnaround in its commerce business and big strides into the critical field of AI.
Trump to Halt NY Congestion Pricing by Terminating Approval
Sorry, Kids: Disney's New York Headquarters Is for Grown-Ups
Airbnb Billionaire Offers Pre-Fab Homes for LA Fire Victims
Child Migrant Watchdog Gutted in DOGE Cuts
Chicago Council Delays $830 Million Bond Vote Amid Scrutiny
It reported an 8% rise in sales to 280.2 billion yuan ($38.6 billion) in the December quarter, versus an average projection for 277.4 billion yuan. Net income rose to 48.9 billion yuan. Its US shares climbed.
Alibaba is staging a comeback after a brutal government clampdown gutted its internet business, once by far China's dominant online commerce platform. The business began to turn around in 2024 after Joe Tsai and Eddie Wu — two of co-founder Jack Ma's most trusted lieutenants — retook the helm and focused investment on AI and e-commerce.
Click here for a live blog on the results.
Alibaba has gained some $100 billion of market value in 2025, though it's still worth a fraction of its pre-crackdown peak. Ma himself joined a select group of the biggest names in Chinese technology and business at a televised summit convened this week by Xi Jinping — signifying Alibaba's return to favor after years in the cold. The gathering featured entrepreneurs across a broad swath of industry, notably from the sphere of artificial intelligence.
Ma was the highest-profile casualty of Xi's crackdown on the internet and private sector in 2020, when authorities scuttled the blockbuster initial public offering of Alibaba-affiliate Ant Group Co.
That episode kicked off a yearslong campaign to tighten state control over the economy, rein in the nation's billionaire class and shift resources toward Xi's priorities including national security and technological self-sufficiency. Once one of China's most outspoken entrepreneurs, Ma largely disappeared from public view.
But authorities have taken a less combative approach as China's economy slowed and companies aligned themselves with Xi's push for leadership in areas like AI. Alibaba, which operates one of the world's biggest cloud services platforms, wowed investors this year by making major headway in that arena during the post-ChatGPT era.
Why China Investors Believe Tech Crackdown is Over: QuickTake
Since the advent of OpenAI's chatbot, Alibaba has invested in a clutch of China's most promising startups, including Moonshot and Zhipu. It prioritized the expansion of the cloud business that underpins AI development, slashing prices to win back the customers that fled during the turbulent years. It also decided to spend big on AI, joining a race led by Baidu Inc. at the time.
Its Qwen AI model has performed well in official benchmark tests and signaled the company's growing relevance in the field. And Apple Inc. is incorporating Alibaba's AI technology into Chinese iPhones, a vote of confidence in its prowess.
What Bloomberg Intelligence Says
The primary cause might have been lower earnings at Taobao-Tmall, which increased merchant and user perks to bolster e-commerce market share in China. That headwind would weaken if mainland consumer sentiment improves in the next 12 months. Adjustments to international digital commerce unit AIDC and the operations of logistics business Cainiao amid the US-China trade war could hurt earnings, particularly in the first half of this year.
Alibaba's push for greater use of its public cloud services and AI-related products, at reduced prices, is meant to bolster revenue growth, but the subsidies must have undermined margin gains from economies of scale.
- Catherine Lim and Trini Tan, analysts
Click here for the research.
Tsai and Wu also accelerated the unloading of non-core assets such as in physical retail, raising capital to bankroll AI investments as well and an international expansion spearheaded by newly appointed e-commerce chief Jiang Fan. He now heads up Alibaba's effort to fend off up-and-coming rivals including ByteDance Ltd. and PDD Holdings Inc.
DeepSeek's sudden rise to global prominence last month - a shock to both Silicon Valley and Wall Street — has boosted Chinese tech stocks including Alibaba in recent weeks. The stock is trading at over 13 times estimated forward earnings, up from less than 9 just last month.
Alibaba's valuation could return to its five-year average of 15 times if it continue to show progress, said Xiadong Bao, fund manager at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management.
Why China Investors Believe Tech Crackdown is Over: QuickTake
--With assistance from Zheping Huang.
Japan Perfected 7-Eleven. Why Can't the US Get It Right?
How Med Spas Conquered America
Before DeepSeek Blew Up, Chatbot Arena Announced Its Arrival
The Startup That Stepped In When the Baby Formula Supply Chain Broke
Elon Musk's DOGE Is a Force Americans Can't Afford to Ignore
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Tom's Guide
26 minutes ago
- Tom's Guide
I let smart glasses read my emotions and watch what I eat — and now I can't unsee the future
I believe the next great fitness wearable will not be a smartwatch or smart ring — it will be glasses. I saw this for myself when trying a prototype of the new eyewear Emteq Labs is keen to launch next year. Sporting sensors all around the rims, it can detect the subtlest of changes in your facial expressions (even those you aren't consciously aware of doing). With this data, paired with AI, it can become a personalized life coach for your fitness, your diet and even your emotional health. I put this to the test in my time talking to Emteq CEO, Steen Strand, to see what they can truly bring to the table for the average user and what the future holds. At the core of Emteq's glasses are a series of nine sensors that can identify facial movements to a near-microscopic degree. They're dotted across the bottom of the lenses in these prototypes, which are paired with AI to deliver a personalized set of specs that can sense you. Of course, there are plenty of fascinating use-cases for these, such as using your face to interact with a computer, or adding more true-to-life emotion to your in-game character. But the one that jumped out at me is health — not just physical health but emotional health. Currently, health tracking via consumer tech is limited to your fitness routines — filling in Apple Watch rings and checking your sleep. These are all fair and good, but as I've learned in my journey of losing 20 pounds, good nutrition is just as important. And while there are apps like MyFitnessPal that can deliver effective nutritional information. None come quite as easy to use and complex with actionable detail as Emteq's prototype setup. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Using ChatGPT-4o, the on-board camera takes a snap of what you're eating and breaks it down into total calories and detailed macros. And on top of that, it will even give you a chewing score…yep, you read that correctly. Digestive issues and impacts on metabolic health can creep up if you chew too fast, so it's important to take your time. So those sensors on your glasses can track biting and chewing speeds to ensure you don't become too much of a food hoover. 'We can use AI to give you custom personalized guidance — some of that actually in real-time,' Steen added. 'We have high fidelity information about how you're eating and what you're eating, and are already using haptic feedback for in-the-moment notifications.' And with their ability to track activity too — tracking different exercises such as walking, running and even star jumps — this can all come together with the AI infusion to give you a far better understanding of your fitness levels. Then there's the emotion sensing piece of the puzzle. Up until this point, it's all been very surface level — prompts to fill in a journal, heart rate tracking to detect stress, or practice deep breathing exercises. All nice-to-haves but beyond the big issue that people could just lie to their phones, nothing has really gone deeper. We believe that understanding emotions is a force multiplier for AI, in terms of it being effective for you in the context of wearing glasses all day. If you want AI to be really effective for you, it's critical that it understands how you're feeling in real-time." Well, beyond accurately assessing eating behaviors throughout the day, other data points can be used to assess emotional context, such as mood detection and posture analysis. While I'm able to fake a smile, the upper section of my face and forehead gave me away in the moment. And then when you tap into the evergrowing popularity of people using ChatGPT for emotional support and therapy, you're surely going to get a more personalized, more frank conversation when data is added in there too. 'We believe that understanding emotions is a force multiplier for AI, in terms of it being effective for you in the context of wearing glasses all day,' Steen commented. 'If you want AI to be really effective for you, it's critical that it understands how you're feeling in real-time, in response to different things that are happening around you.' It sounds creepy on paper, and it kind of is when you think about it. But it's certainly a gateway into real emotional honesty that you may not get by rationalizing with yourself in a journal app and possibly glazing over any cracks in your mental health when filling out that survey for the day. Now this may all seem fascination (I think it is too), but I'm not ignorant of the key questions that come with strapping a bunch of sensors to your face: the questions of privacy surrounding a device grabbing so much data, or simply asking do we really want to be judged for our chewing. Privacy is always a question you can have of many different items that collect a lot of information like this. And to that latter question, that's asked with every big step forward like this. But the end result is something so much more advanced than a smart ring, and much more proactive. Here at Augmented World Expo (AWE), I found a breadcrumb trail of a lot of things that could lead to the smart glasses of the future that everyone will wear. Emteq is probably the biggest crumb of them all, because while AI is definitely the key to unlocking XR, personalizing it is the real challenge. Sensors and real-time data collection like this to help aid you into a better life is the clearest step towards tackling that challenge.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump says he is open to extending trade deal deadline for other countries: 'I would'
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was willing to extend the deadline for countries to reach a trade deal with the United States, but he doesn't think it will be necessary. At the same time, he also indicated that in one to two weeks his administration would be sending out letters telling countries "what the deal is." Trump made the remarks ahead of a performance of "Les Misérables" that he attended at the Kennedy Center in Washington with the first lady. Trump Administration Prevails As Appeals Court Pauses Lower Court Decision Blocking Contested Tariffs "I would," Trump said when asked if he would be willing to extend the July 8 deadline for countries to negotiate a trade deal or else face steep tariffs. "But I don't think we're going to have that necessity," the president added, telling reporters "we're rocking in terms of deals" right now. Shortly after announcing sweeping tariff policies on April 2 for virtually every U.S. trading partner, the Trump administration chose to institute a 90-day pause to give countries a chance to make a deal with the United States. Read On The Fox News App Trump noted during the gaggle with reporters ahead of Wednesday's Kennedy Center performance that the United States remains in talks with about 15 countries with whom it is still trying to cement a deal. But the president said that he intends to send letters to these partners setting unilateral tariff rates if a deal is not reached. "We're dealing with Japan. We're dealing with South Korea. We're dealing with a lot of them. We're dealing with about 15 countries. But as you know, we have about 150-plus, and you can't [make a deal with all of them]. So we're going to be sending letters out in about a week and a half, two weeks, to countries and telling them what the deal is." Trump's Tariff Strategy Could Pay For His Tax Bill, But Only If They Stick, Experts Warn "At a certain point, we're just going to send letters out … saying this is the deal, you can take it or leave it," Trump added. Highly anticipated trade talks with China held in London this week led to a preliminary agreement between the world's two biggest economic powers, but the "framework" is still pending final approval from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump. "We made a great deal with China. We're very happy with it," Trump told reporters at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday evening. "We have everything we need, and we're going to do very well with it. And hopefully they are, too."Original article source: Trump says he is open to extending trade deal deadline for other countries: 'I would'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Rep. Luna: China is dangerous, behind funding of protests
(NewsNation) — Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican, announced the House Oversight committee will be calling China-based billionaire Neville Singham to testify regarding the funding of a group that organized protests in Los Angeles. 'If he refuses to appear, he will be subpoenaed, and if he ignores that, he will be referred to the DOJ for prosecution,' Luna said in a post on social platform X. She alleged that the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a Communist political party to which Singham has previously donated, is also receiving funding from the Chinese Communist Party. The committee will be looking into links between Singham and the CCP, as well. Luna joined NewsNation's 'CUOMO' on Wednesday to discuss the investigation. She said she believes Singham and the CCP are purposely trying to create division within the United States. Hogg forgoes reelection for DNC vice chair 'I do believe the Chinese government knows what they're doing; they're smart and they're dangerous,' Luna said. She added that she believes they are creating a ruse with the protests and making Hispanic-Americans think the unrest going on is all about the recent ICE raids. Luna said during the Biden administration, then-Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Lindsey Graham asked then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Singham over Foreign Agents Registration Act violations and ties to China, but the administration did not follow up. 'It's not just me, but the entire Oversight committee in Congress,' Luna said. 'This is a different administration. We are not playing games. What you are seeing in real time is things are heating up. China is not our friend.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
