Agency :
China’s Alibaba Group Holding, on Wednesday missed analysts’ estimates for third-quarter revenue, hurt by a weak retail environment and faltering economic recovery in the world’s second-largest economy.
US-listed shares of Alibaba fell 4 percent in early trading after the company flagged an increase of $25 billion to its share repurchase program through the end of March 2027.
Alibaba is under pressure as consumers in China, have been cutting spending, boosting rival lower-cost domestic e-commerce players such as PDD Holdings.
The group announced the split of its business into six units last March in a transition overseen by co-founders CEO Eddie Wu and Chairman Joe Tsai. Wu, group CEO since September, will directly oversee the domestic e-commerce arm.
“Our top priority is to reignite the growth of our core businesses, e-commerce and cloud computing,” Wu said on Wednesday.
Alibaba’s net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was 14.4 billion yuan ($2 billion) and net income was 10.7 billion yuan ($1.51 billion), a decrease of 77 percent primarily due to valuation changes from equity investments and impairments related to hypermarket operator Sun Art and online video streaming service Youku.
