Alibaba's revenue miss disappoints investors
NEW YORK - Alibaba's (BABA) first-quarter net income more than doubled on strong growth across its online and mobile platforms.
But the Chinese e-commerce powerhouse's sales still fell short of Wall Street expectations, and investors are selling. Its shares fell more than 5 percent in Wednesday's premarket trading.
Alibaba went public in the U.S. in September to much fanfare as investors sought to tap into the rapidly growing Chinese middle-class consumer class. Its e-commerce platforms, including Taobao and Tmall, make up 80 percent of Chinese e-commerce.
But the quarterly results come as the Chinese economy is facing uncertainty. The Beijing government devalued the yuan this week in an effort to make its exchange rate more market-oriented.
Alibaba said net income rose to 12.34 million Chinese yuan, or 11.92 yuan (US$1.92) per share. Excluding one-time items, net income was 59 cents per share. That beat analyst expectations of 56 cents per share according to FactSet.
Annual active buyers rose 32 percent to 367 million.
Revenue rose 28 percent to 20.25 million Chinese yuan ($3.27 billion), from 15.77 billion Chinese yuan a year ago. That missed analyst expectations of $3.32 billion.
Sales on mobile devices made up more than half of Alibaba's retail total for the first time.
Revenue from cloud computing more than doubled to 485 million Chinese yuan ($78 million).
Alibaba, based in Hangzhou, China, also announced a $4 billion share repurchase program over the next two years.