Revenue came up a bit short of expectations, with growth driven by China and international retail as well as logistics
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. beat earnings estimates Tuesday but fell slightly short of revenue expectations, while also announcing a boost to its buyback program.
The company posted fiscal first-quarter net income of RMB45.1 billion ($7.0 billion), or RMB16.38 a share, down from RMB47.6 billion, or RMB17.36 a share, a year-prior. On an adjusted basis, Alibaba 9988 BABA earned RMB16.60 a share, up from RMB14.82 a year earlier and ahead the FactSet consensus, which called for RMB14.33 a share.
Alibaba’s revenue for the June quarter increased to RMB205.7 billion from RMB153.8 billion, while analysts tracked by FactSet were modeling RMB209.1billion. The revenue growth was largely driven by the performance of Alibaba’s China commerce retail business as well as momentum in the company’s international retail and Cainiao logistics businesses, according to the earnings release.
Alibaba’s U.S.-listed shares are up 0.9% in premarket trading Tuesday.
The company generated RMB180.2 billion in total commerce revenue, up 35% from a year earlier. Cloud computing revenue increased 29% to RMB16.1 billion.
Alibaba saw about 1.18 billion annual active customers during the 12 months that ended June 30, marking an increase of 45 million from the 12-month period that ended March 31.
The company announced that it is boosting its share-repurchase program to $15 billion from $10 billion. The program is Alibaba’s largest in its history and the company has repurchased about $3.7 billion of its American depositary shares since April 1.
Alibaba is investing its incremental profits back into the business, as it outlined during its last earnings report.
Shares of Alibaba have slipped 13.3% over the past three months as the KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF KWEB has lost 30.5% and as the S&P 500 SPX has increased 4.6%.