By George Stahl
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s revenue rose 40% during the key
holiday quarter but still fell short of expectations, despite a
continued surge in users buying items through mobile devices.
Shares of the Chinese e-commerce giant fell about 4.9% to $93.60
in premarket trading as the company's revenue of $4.22 billion
missed analysts's average forecast of $4.45 billion. Through
Wednesday, the stock had risen 45% since its initial public
offering price of $68 in September.
Alibaba said the revenue growth from its China retail
marketplaces trailed the growth of total business volume.
The results come as Alibaba is embroiled in a rare, high-stakes
public dispute with a powerful Chinese government agency that is
accusing the company of allegedly failing to crack down on the sale
of fake goods, bribery and other illegal activity on its sites.
In response, Alibaba has said it is "willing to assume the
responsibility of fighting fakes" and that its effort "is far from
complete." But it also criticized the inspection methods of the
Chinese official and called the agency's conclusion biased.
A white paper on the issue that the government regulator, the
State Administration for Industry and Commerce, released Wednesday
could no longer be found on its website on Thursday, and a press
representative for the agency said she didn't know the reason.
For the December quarter, mobile transactions accounted for 42%
of Alibaba's overall transactions, up from 36% in the September
quarter and 20% from a year earlier. The number of active users on
Alibaba's mobile platforms rose to 265 million in December, up from
217 million in September from 136 million a year ago.
Alibaba's ability to boost revenue from its mobile platforms has
been scrutinized as more Chinese Internet users go online from
their mobile devices.
Overall, Alibaba's earnings fell 28% to $964 million, or 37
cents a share, mainly because of employee stock awards. Excluding
items such as the stock grants, per-share earnings rose 13% to 81
cents a share. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 75
cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters.
Alibaba said that on its China retail marketplaces, gross
merchandise volume for the quarter increased 49% and annual active
buyers rose 45% year-over-year.
Earlier this week, Yahoo Inc. unveiled a plan to spin off
tax-free its nearly $40 billion of holdings in Alibaba. The spinoff
is seen giving the Chinese e-commerce giant the chance to buy its
own shares at a lower tax rate than if it tried to acquire them
now.
Alibaba said it had $21.07 billion in cash as of Dec. 31.
Write to George Stahl at george.stahl@wsj.com
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