Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) yesterday said that its profit for the most recent quarter tumbled 81 percent, as it grappled with a government crackdown on the nation’s big tech champions.
Net profit came in at 5.37 billion yuan (US$833 million) for the July-to-September period, falling from 28.77 billion yuan a year earlier, the company said.
It made no reference to the clampdown, instead blaming the decline largely on “increased investments in key strategic areas,” such as the lower-tier segment of its consumer markets and its international operations.
Photo: Reuters
The Hangzhou-based company’s revenues — generated mainly by its core e-commerce operations — reached 200.7 billion yuan, up 29 percent from a year earlier.
It forecast revenue growth of 20 to 23 percent for the full 2022 fiscal year, down from the 27 percent that had been projected by Bloomberg analysts.
Alibaba’s earnings have been keenly anticipated as a gauge of how one of the nation’s highest-profile companies was faring under the government’s drive to rein in big tech.
The Chinese Communist Party had previously relied upon its tech giants to push forward digital transformation in the country.
However, it abruptly turned on the sector late last year, as concerns mounted over its aggressive expansion, alleged monopolistic practices, and data security — paralleling similar unease with tech firms in the US and elsewhere.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day