Alibaba Q1 Financial Report: Taobao Tmall GMV Sees Healthy Growth

New Delhi (India), June 1: On the evening of May 7, Alibaba Group announced its first-quarter results for fiscal year 2024. The group reported robust revenue growth, strategic focus on core businesses, and structural adjustments showing initial results.

This quarter, Taobao Tmall's online GMV experienced healthy growth. The revenue of Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group increased by 44% year-on-year, focusing on the "public cloud first" strategy. Alibaba Cloud's revenue quality and profitability continued to improve. Cainiao Group's revenue grew by 24% year-on-year. The Local Services Group saw double-digit growth in both revenue and order volume, with over 390 million annual active consumers. The Digital Media and Entertainment Group's revenue increased by 18% year-on-year.

In 2024, Alibaba will actively invest in its core businesses. Alibaba Group CEO, Wu Yongming, said: "Under our strategic focus, we achieved a solid quarter. Our top priority is to reignite growth in our two core businesses, e-commerce and cloud computing. Over the next year, we will increase investment to improve the core user experience to support Taotian Group in regaining growth and consolidating its market leadership. We will focus resources on developing public cloud products and maintaining strong growth momentum in our international commerce business."

Taobao Tmall GMV Sees Healthy Growth with Significant Improvement in Key Indicators

Taotian Group focused on enhancing user experience and price strategy, yielding initial results this quarter. Taobao Tmall's quarterly online GMV achieved healthy year-on-year growth, with strong growth in transaction buyer numbers and order volume. Additionally, the number of platform merchants continued to record double-digit year-on-year growth, maintaining this trend for the past four consecutive quarters.

Following the successful Double 11 event, Taobao Tmall's order volume saw double-digit year-on-year growth in the latter half of the quarter, reflecting the effective implementation of the price strategy and the increasing consumer demand and willingness to purchase on the platform. Meanwhile, the platform successfully retained and expanded its high-end consumer base, with the number of 88VIP members exceeding 32 million, continuing to achieve double-digit year-on-year growth.

On the Taobao Tmall platform, AI is gradually demonstrating its commercial value. Starting in 2024, Taobao Tmall will gradually release ten smart tools and services to merchants. Taobao also launched the "AI Ecosystem Partner Program 2.0," providing 100 million yuan in computing resource subsidies, interface fee reductions, and commission exemptions to further enrich and expand the AI open ecosystem. The future looks promising for the integration of AI with e-commerce scenarios to improve efficiency.

Alibaba Cloud Enhances Revenue Quality and Profitability, Public Cloud Products and Services Revenue Grows

The Cloud Intelligence Group focused on the "AI-driven, public cloud first" strategy, improving revenue quality by reducing lower-margin project-based contract income. This strategy yielded positive results this quarter, with healthy growth in public cloud products and services revenue, leading to improved profitability. Adjusted EBITA grew 86% year-on-year, setting a new high for the fiscal year.

In terms of product technology, Alibaba Cloud launched multiple products and services in underlying computing power, AI platforms, and model services. In January 2024, Alibaba Cloud announced the latest general-purpose computing instance, ECS g8i, significantly enhancing overall efficiency and AI inference capabilities. In Gartner's 2023 "Magic Quadrant for Cloud Database Management Systems" report, Alibaba Cloud retained its leader position for the fourth consecutive year.

Currently, Alibaba Cloud has established a comprehensive AI infrastructure at the IaaS+PaaS layer. As the proponent of the MaaS (Model as a Service) concept, Alibaba Cloud leads the construction and operation of ModelScope, the largest AI model open-source community in China with the most active developers.

Rapid Growth in International E-commerce, Steady Growth for Cainiao

This quarter, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group's revenue increased by 44% year-on-year, with total orders growing 24% year-on-year, and all overseas retail platforms achieving strong growth.

AliExpress saw over 60% year-on-year growth in quarterly orders, primarily driven by Choice. In January 2024, Choice orders accounted for about half of AliExpress's total orders and continued to grow rapidly. According to data analysis platform Similarweb, AliExpress became one of the top three fastest-growing websites in the US in 2023 in terms of average monthly visits. According to South Korea's Wiseapp Retail Goods, AliExpress was the most downloaded mobile app in the South Korean market in 2023. Reports from Spain's Club Ecommerce and EGI Group showed that in December 2023, AliExpress was the second-largest e-commerce platform in Spain by visits, second only to Amazon.

Trendyol continued to record strong double-digit quarterly order growth, maintaining its leading e-commerce position in Turkey while further expanding its business to the Gulf region. Lazada continued to focus on improving operational efficiency, with monetization rates increasing and logistics costs decreasing, resulting in a continued reduction in per-order losses year-on-year this quarter.

Cainiao continued to advance the development of a global intelligent logistics network, with cross-border logistics fulfillment solutions driving a 24% year-on-year revenue growth and achieving high synergy with cross-border e-commerce businesses. This quarter, to support cross-border business development, Cainiao further expanded the scope of its premium global five-day delivery service, adding two new countries this quarter. Orders for the premium global five-day delivery service saw strong triple-digit growth quarter-on-quarter.

Market analysts believe Alibaba is in a critical business adjustment period. Despite the adjustments, the group achieved solid performance this quarter, demonstrating the effectiveness of its business strategies. It is expected that in the coming quarters, with increased investment in core businesses, e-commerce GMV will steadily grow, unlocking AI and international growth opportunities.