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.
Photo: Bloomberg
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.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
AI-FUELED DEMAND: The company has been benefiting from the skyrocketing prices for DRAM chips amid the AI frenzy, especially its core product — DDR4 DRAM chips DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday reported that its revenue for the first quarter surged 582.91 percent to NT$49.09 billion (US$1.54 billion) from NT$7.19 billion a year earlier, as the supply crunch caused chip price spikes. Last quarter’s figure is the highest on record. On a quarterly basis, revenue jumped 63.14 percent from NT$30.09 billion, the company said. In January, Nanya Technology expected global DRAM supply scarcity to continue through the first half of 2028, thanks to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) forecast prices of standard DRAM chips would rise between 58 percent and 63
HIGHER PRICES: Given rising energy costs, CPC raised natural gas prices for generators by 41.58%, which Taipower said would raise its power generation costs by NT$10 billion State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) has activated its fourth naphtha cracker to boost ethylene supply, aiming to ease concerns over plastic material shortages amid tensions in the Middle East, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. The move is expected to add 19,000 tonnes of supply this month and 30,000 tonnes next month, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Chin-tsang (何晉滄) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. CPC on Tuesday held talks with major polyethylene producers, including Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), Asia Polymer Corp (亞聚) and USI Corp (台聚), and pledged to supply ethylene feedstock
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