Alibaba Shares Jump Over 4% in Hong Kong and US Overnight Trading
Alibaba is scheduled to report results for its fiscal first quarter on Thursday.
Here's what you need to know:
NET PROFIT FORECAST: The Chinese e-commerce titan is expected to report net profit of 21.80 billion yuan, equivalent to $3.23 billion, for the three months ended June, according to the consensus estimate of 12 analysts in a FactSet poll. That would be down sharply from 43.12 billion yuan a year earlier.
REVENUE FORECAST: Quarterly revenue was likely 266.78 billion yuan, according to FactSet, up from 247.65 billion yuan a year ago.
The company's Hong Kong-listed stock slid 22% in the April-June period, before climbing 34% since end-June. Year to date, the stock is down 15%.
WHAT TO WATCH:
--CLOUD: Alibaba is likely to reap benefits from its AI and cloud business, Jefferies analysts say in a research note. "In cloud computing, Alibaba has clear market leadership as the backbone of digitalization across different industries," the analysts say. Jefferies projects Alibaba's cloud segment Ebitda margin to improve sequentially in the June quarter to 11.5%, beating market consensus.
--AI MODEL: Alibaba stands to gain from an accelerating pace of model upgrades, Citi analysts say in a research note. The latest Qwen and Kimi K3 model releases by Alibaba and Moonshot AI, respectively, indicate an "accelerating AI race" in China. "This trend reduces the defensibility of any single model, shifting the competitive focus to the platforms and infrastructure that can seamlessly host and manage them," Citi says.
--PROFITABILITY: Alibaba's profitability has been hurt in recent quarters, primarily due to intense food-delivery competition as well as heavy AI investment. The company said in 2025 that it plans to invest at least $53 billion over next three years to advance its cloud computing and AI infrastructure.