Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd 9988.HK posted a smaller-than-expected rise in quarterly revenue on Thursday as COVID-19 curbs and a worsening economic outlook stifled consumer spending.
Retail spending in China has sagged this year with consumers frustrated by the government’s strict zero-COVID policies that have led to frequent snap lockdowns and hurt economic activity.
Alibaba has also had to contend with stiff competition from the likes of Pinduoduo PDD.O and ByteDance’s Douyin – the Chinese version of Tiktok – which have expanded their e-commerce offerings and taken more market share.
The company has also yet to fully recover from a regulatory crackdown on the tech sector that has curtailed growth opportunities.
Revenue grew 3% to 207.18 billion yuan ($28.96 billion) in the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with a Refinitiv consensus estimate of 208.62 billion yuan drawn from 25 analysts.
Alibaba, which runs China’s largest online marketplaces Tmall and Taobao and owns a wide range of businesses from logistics to cloud services, reported net loss attributable to shareholders of 20.56 billion yuan in the quarter.
Excluding one-off items, Alibaba earned 12.92 yuan per American Depository Share.