Alibaba (BABA) 2021 Q4 Financial Results Preview

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) was founded by Jack Ma and his friends in 1999. It initially focused e-commerce market but later stepped into several businesses ranging from food delivery to cloud computing, helping it to become one of the world’s most valuable corporations. Its rapid growth and strong global presence enabled it to compete with the likes of leading tech giants, such as Google and Amazon.

The Chinese e-commerce behemoth recently announced its financial results for the fourth quarter. The company reported a loss of 1.99 yuan per share for the three months ended March 31, marking its first operating loss since going public. The loss was a result of a record antitrust fine imposed by the government over abusing its dominant position in China for several years (see best Chinese stocks to buy).

Excluding the fine and other expenses, Alibaba reported an adjusted profit of 10.32 yuan per share, missing analysts’ average estimate of 11.16 yuan per share. Revenue for the quarter climbed 64 percent on a year-over-year basis to 187.4 billion yuan, beating the consensus forecast of 180.2 billion.

Annual active customers across its retail marketplaces in China increased to 811 million during the year ended March 31. Revenue from the commerce segment jumped 72 percent to 161.4 billion yuan, while cloud-computing revenue surged 37 percent to 16.8 billion yuan in the quarter.

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Speaking on the results, CEO Daniel Zhang said in a statement, “Our overall business delivered strong growth on a healthy foundation, with the Alibaba Ecosystem generating a record US$1.2 trillion in GMV during this fiscal year. Such achievements were built on top of clear value propositions that we offer to consumers and merchants. We remain very excited about the growth of China’s consumption economy, which is benefiting from the acceleration of digitalization in all aspects of life and work. We will continue to focus on customer experience and value creation through innovation, as we pursue our mission to make it easy to do business anywhere in the digital era.”