Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) on Wednesday approved an additional US$25 billion authorization to its share buyback program, after reporting lower-than-expected sales revenue for the final quarter of last year.
The company’s Hong Kong-traded shares plunged 6.8 percent yesterday. Alibaba’s New York-listed stock price sank 5.9 percent on Wednesday and has fallen nearly 26 percent over the past year.
Alibaba posted a 5 percent annual increase in sales to 260.3 billion yuan (US$36.35 billion) in the quarter that ended in December last year, slightly missing analysts’ estimates. Net income sank to 14.4 billion yuan, down 77 percent compared to a year earlier.
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The Hangzhou, China-based firm attributed the drastic decrease to declining values of its equity investments and falling revenues.
Alibaba has struggled to sustain its growth and faces increasing competition in the e-commerce sector from rivals such as PDD Holdings Inc (拼多多), which operates Pinduoduo, and ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動), which runs both TikTok and Douyin (抖音).
On a call with analysts, Alibaba chairman Joseph Tsai (蔡崇信) said that the company no longer plans to list shares in its logistics unit Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Ltd (菜鳥網路) and its Freshippo (盒馬鮮生) grocery business unit, given “challenging market conditions.”
Earlier, the group scrapped plans to spin off its cloud business, citing uncertainties over US export curbs on advanced chips used for artificial intelligence.
Alibaba is looking to sell off some of its non-core holdings, including several retail operations, he said.
“We have a number of traditional physical retail businesses on our balance sheet, and these are not our core focus,” Tsai said.
The company initially restructured its businesses in March last year, splitting them into six units that would eventually raise their own capital and go public to improve shareholder value.
Trying to rev up its growth, in December last year Alibaba named current chief executive officer Eddie Wu (吳泳銘) as the new head of its e-commerce business, replacing longtime Alibaba executive Trudy Dai (戴珊). That came weeks after rival PDD surpassed Alibaba in market value.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Thursday met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, days before a planned trip to China by the head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said. Details of what the two men discussed were not immediately available, and the people familiar with the meeting declined to elaborate on the agenda. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Nvidia’s CEO has been vocal about the need for US companies to access the world’s largest semiconductor market and is a frequent visitor to China.
Hypermarket chain Carrefour Taiwan and upscale supermarket chain Mia C’bon on Saturday announced the suspension of their partnership with Jkopay Co (街口支付), one of Taiwan’s largest digital payment providers, amid a lawsuit involving its parent company. Carrefour and Mia C’bon said they would notify customers once Jkopay services are reinstated. The two retailers joined an array of other firms in suspending their partnerships with Jkopay. On Friday night, popular beverage chain TP Tea (茶湯會) also suspended its use of the platform, urging customers to opt for alternative payment methods. Another drinks brand, Guiji (龜記), on Friday said that it is up to individual
STABLE RESULTS: Despite June’s lower consolidated revenue, second-quarter sales still reached a record high, driven by demand for chips for AI applications Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales of NT$263.71 billion (US$9.02 billion) for last month, its second-lowest monthly result this year. The world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement that its revenue last month only fared better than the NT$260.01 billion posted in February. Last month’s figure rose 26.9 percent from a year earlier, but slumped 17.7 percent from May, the company said. However, second-quarter revenue reached NT$933.8 billion, a record high for a single quarter, company data showed. The figure represented growth of 11.26 percent from the first quarter and 38.6 percent from a year earlier. Previously, TSMC said that
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