By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Alibaba ADR (NYSE:BABA) was trading weaker in Tuesday’s premarket as the Chinese internet giant’s first-quarter revenue came below expectations and user growth slowed.
Revenue in the June quarter was RMB205.74 billion ($31.86 billion), an increase of 34% year-over-year and below the analysts’ expectation of RMB209.16 billion.
But for last year’s acquisition of supermarket chain Sun Art, the gap would been even wider.
Excluding the consolidation of Sun Art, revenue would have grown 22% year-over-year to RMB187.30 billion ($29 billion), according to Alibaba.
The company’s Chinese marketplaces notched up 939 monthly active users for June, up 14 million from March’s 925 million. The March figure was higher by 23 million from December’s, reflecting slowing growth as consumers step out of the pandemic to return to normal times.
Besides the Sun Art consolidation, growth in the company’s Cloud computing and commerce businesses drove revenue. The Sun Art business is now part of Alibaba’s commerce operations.
The commerce business benefited from more people using the platform to order their daily stuff from groceries to electronics. The company also said it generated more revenue from recommendation feeds and better search monetization.
Adjusted earnings per diluted ADS were RMB16.6, higher than the estimated RMB14.37.