Alibaba’s sales grow fastest since 2023 as comeback signs mount

Alibaba (9988) posted its fastest pace of revenue growth in more than a year, reflecting a turnaround in its commerce business and big strides into the critical field of AI.

It reported a faster-than-projected 8 percent rise in sales to 280.2 billion yuan (HK$299.14 billion) in the December quarter, after cloud services revenue expanded its most on a quarterly basis in about two years. The company’s share rose more than 6% in US pre-market trading.

Alibaba is staging a comeback after a brutal government clampdown gutted its internet business, once by far China’s dominant online commerce platform. The business began to turn around in 2024 after Joe Tsai Chung-Hsin and Eddie Wu Yongming— two of co-founder Jack Ma Yun’s most trusted lieutenants — retook the helm and focused investment on AI and e-commerce.

The cloud division, which houses the company’s diverse AI-related projects and hosts computing power for external clients, grew revenue 13 percent to US$4.3 billion (HK$33.54 billion). International commerce sales — driven by overseas marketplaces such as AliExpress and Trendyol — surged 32 percent in the December quarter.

Alibaba has gained some US$100 billion of market value in 2025, though it’s still worth a fraction of its pre-crackdown peak. Ma himself joined a select group of the biggest names in Chinese technology and business at a televised summit convened this week by Xi Jinping — signifying Alibaba’s return to favor after years in the cold. The gathering featured entrepreneurs across a broad swath of industry, notably from the sphere of artificial intelligence.

Since the advent of OpenAI’s chatbot, Alibaba has invested in a clutch of China’s most promising startups, including Moonshot and Zhipu. It prioritized the expansion of the cloud business that underpins AI development, slashing prices to win back the customers that fled during the turbulent years. It also decided to spend big on AI, joining a race led by Baidu (9888) at the time.

Its Qwen AI model has performed well in official benchmark tests and signaled the company’s growing relevance in the field. And Apple Inc. is incorporating Alibaba’s AI technology into Chinese iPhones, a vote of confidence in its prowess.

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