Slowest revenue growth since IPO

Alibaba on Thursday reported its slowest quarterly revenue growth since going public and missed expectations, but the Chinese e-commerce giant did beat on earnings.

Here’s how Alibaba did in its fiscal third-quarter, versus Refinitiv consensus estimates: 

• Revenue: 242.58 billion ($38.06 billion) vs. 246.37 billion yuan estimated, a 10% year-on-year rise.
• EPS: 16.87 ($2.65) yuan per share vs. 16.18 yuan per share estimated, a 23% year-on-year fall.

The 10% revenue growth is the slowest quarterly year-on-year growth rate for the company since its 2014 U.S. listing.

Alibaba shares were down more than 8% in pre-market trade.

Alibaba has been facing macroeconomic headwinds in China which have weighed on the e-commerce giant’s business. Chinese retail sales remained sluggish in the fourth quarter of the year, for example. And there is heightened competition in China’s e-commerce space.

Meanwhile, the company’s shares have fallen over 50% in the last year as China tightened regulation on the country’s technology sector in areas from antitrust to data protection. Last year, Alibaba was hit with a 18.23 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) fine by regulators as part of an antitrust investigation.

Scrutiny on China’s tech giants continues which is another factor weighing on the company.

“Our current share price does not fairly reflect the value of the company. At current price levels, we plan on continuing our share repurchases. At the same time, we will maintain a strong cash position that gives us the financial flexibility for future investments,” Toby Xu, chief financial officer of Alibaba, said on the earnings conference call.

In the December quarter, Alibaba bought back approximately 10.1 million of its U.S.-listed American depositary shares for around $1.4 billion. Its share repurchase scheme will expire at the end of December 2022.