Alibaba announced on Thursday (August 15th) that its first-quarter profits and revenue were below expectations, with around 21,000 job cuts in the past six months.
On the evening of August 15th, Alibaba Group released its financial performance for the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year.
According to the financial report, in the quarter, Alibaba’s revenue was 243.236 billion yuan, a 4% year-on-year increase, falling short of the market’s expectation of 246.36 billion yuan; operating profit was 35.989 billion yuan, a 15% year-on-year decrease.
In terms of profitability indicators, the net profit reached 24.022 billion yuan, a 27% year-on-year decrease; adjusted EBITA decreased by 1% year-on-year to 45.035 billion yuan; non-GAAP net profit was 40.69 billion yuan, a 9.4% year-on-year decrease.
Net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders was 24.269 billion yuan, down 29.31% year-on-year, while analysts surveyed by FactSet had an average expectation of Alibaba’s net profit for the quarter at 28.175 billion yuan.
The sales volume of Alibaba’s core domestic e-commerce businesses Taobao and Tmall reached 113.37 billion yuan, a 1% year-on-year decrease. Alibaba stated that driven by the increase in the number of customers and purchase frequency, the total online merchandise transaction volume achieved a high-single-digit percentage growth.
Alibaba Cloud’s sales increased by 5.9% to 26.55 billion yuan. Its rapidly expanding overseas e-commerce division saw revenue increase by 32% to 29.29 billion yuan, but this growth rate was lower than the 45% increase in the previous quarter.
According to “First Finance,” overall, Alibaba’s domestic e-commerce conglomerate Taoten Group’s revenue and profit growth continue to be under pressure, with Taobao Tmall stabilizing their market share during the recent 618 shopping festival but at the cost of increased expenses to enhance consumer experience.
Of note, the financial report revealed that as of June 30th, Alibaba’s total number of employees was 198,162, compared to 204,891 as of March 31st and 219,300 as of December 31st, 2023.
This indicates that over the past six months, Alibaba has been continuously downsizing, with approximately 6,700 fewer employees in the second quarter of this year and a total reduction of around 21,000 employees over the first half of the year.