According to the financial news app, Alibaba-W (09988) released its quarterly performance for the period ending September 30, 2024, with the group achieving revenue of 23.6503 million yuan (RMB, the same below), an increase of 5% year-on-year; the net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was 43.874 billion yuan, an increase of 58% year-on-year; the net income was 43.547 billion yuan, an increase of 63% year-on-year; diluted EPS was 18.17 yuan (2.59 USD) and basic EPS was 2.27 yuan.

The announcement stated that the increase in net income was mainly due to changes in the fair value of equity investments held by the group, a decrease in investment impairment, and an increase in operating profits.

Taotian Group

This quarter, online GMV growth was driven by double-digit growth in order volume year-on-year, with order growth mainly driven by an increase in purchase frequency, partially offset by a decrease in average order amount. In October and November this year, the group successfully held the November 11 shopping festival-related celebration, during which GMV of Taobao and Tmall achieved strong growth, with a record high number of buyers.

88VIP members are the group's highest-spending consumer group, with their number continuing to grow by double digits year-on-year this quarter, reaching 46 million. The group's high-end consumers, loyal customers who can increase purchase frequency and drive GMV growth, are committed to continuously increasing the number of 88VIP members by enhancing member benefits and services.

Cloud Smart Group

For the quarter ended September 30, 2024, cloud intelligence group revenue was 29.61 billion yuan (4.219 billion USD), a 7% year-on-year increase.

This quarter, the overall revenue (excluding revenue from Alibaba's consolidated business) increased by over 7% year-on-year, driven by double-digit growth in the public cloud business, including an increase in the adoption of AI-related products. The revenue from AI-related products achieved triple-digit year-on-year growth for five consecutive quarters. The group will continue to invest in customer growth and technology, especially in AI infrastructure, to seize the trend of increased cloud adoption in the AI field and maintain a leading market position.

Alibaba Cloud has been recognized as the preferred service provider for public cloud and AI training and applications in China. According to "The Forrester Wave: Public Cloud Platforms in China 2024" report, Alibaba Cloud is positioned in the 'Leaders' quadrant, scoring the highest in 23 out of 32 evaluation criteria and achieving high scores in both product availability and strategy. This quarter, Alibaba Cloud was also rated in the 'Leaders' quadrant in the 'Omdia Universe: Chinese Commercial Foundation Model 2024' report, scoring highest in strategic execution and technical capabilities. These achievements confirm Alibaba Cloud's position as a top public cloud and AI platform in China.

In September of this year, the group held the 16th annual Cloud Computing Developers Summit and Expo 'Yunqi Conference 2024'. At the event, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group introduced new technologies, including:

- Thousand Questions Universal Upgrades: The group made significant upgrades to the Thousand Questions Universal family, including the release of the Thousand Questions Universal open source model 2.5 series, which has become one of the leading models in the global open source ecosystem. The flagship version, Thousand Questions Universal open source model 2.5-72B, has shown strong performance in multiple benchmark tests, surpassing industry peers. From the initial open-source in 2023 to September 30, 2024, over 0.07 million derived models based on the Thousand Questions family have been developed on Hugging Face, indicating Thousand Questions has become one of the most widely adopted open source models globally.

- Cost-effectiveness and Inclusivity in AI: Alibaba Cloud has always been committed to providing customers with the most cost-effective AI capabilities. This quarter, the group significantly improved the cost-effectiveness of Thousand Questions models for customers by reducing API call rates. This makes advanced AI technology more economically inclusive and easy to access.

- Comprehensive AI Infrastructure Upgrades: To better leverage AI application opportunities, the group strengthened AI infrastructure to enhance scalability and performance. Recently, the group launched GPU container services and upgraded AI servers and high-performance network products. These improvements have significantly enhanced model training and inference efficiency across various industries.

As of the quarter ended September 30, 2024, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC) revenue increased by 29% to 31.672 billion yuan (4.513 billion US dollars). The strong performance was driven by continued growth in cross-border business, particularly the AliExpress Choice business. AliExpress and Trendyol platforms continue to invest in specific markets in Europe and the Gulf region to enhance consumer mindshare. At the same time, the group has improved operating and investment efficiency. Therefore, the unit economic efficiency of the Choice business has improved compared to the previous quarter.

As of the quarter ended September 30, 2024, Cainiao Group (Cainiao) revenue increased by 8% to 24.647 billion yuan (3.512 billion US dollars), mainly driven by growth in cross-border logistics fulfillment solution revenue.

As of the quarter ended September 30, 2024, the local life group's revenue increased by 14% to 17.725 billion yuan (2.526 billion US dollars) year-on-year, driven by the growth of Gaode and Eleme orders, as well as the growth in marketing services revenue. In this quarter, benefited from the improvement in operating efficiency and the expansion of business scale, the local life group's loss narrowed significantly year-on-year. During the National Day holiday in October this year, Gaode's peak daily active users exceeded 0.3 billion, reaching a historical high.

As of the quarter ended September 30, 2024, Da Wenyu Group's revenue was 5.694 billion yuan (0.811 billion US dollars), a 1% year-on-year decrease. Da Wenyu Group's loss narrowed year-on-year, and due to the increase in advertising revenue and the improvement in content investment efficiency, Youku's operating losses gradually decreased this quarter.

Alibaba Group CEO Wu Yongming said: "This quarter, Taoten continues to invest in user experience, enrich product supply, to better serve consumers. We have established long-term cooperation with tech peers to expand payment and logistics services on the Taobao and Tmall platforms, expecting to bring significant incremental effects to the overall platform. Cloud business has accelerated growth compared to the previous few quarters, with double-digit growth in public cloud product revenue and triple-digit growth in AI-related product revenue. We are more confident in the prospects of our core business than before, and will continue to invest to support long-term growth. Other business operations continue to improve efficiency, with most businesses continuously improving profitability or reducing losses.

Alibaba Group CFO Xu Hong said: "Revenue growth this quarter was driven by Taoten Group's rhythmic increase in monetization, including service fees based on GMV and merchants using our marketing tools for full-site promotion. In line with our strategy, we continue to invest in core business and improve operational efficiency. This quarter, we repurchased $4.1 billion in shares, further reducing outstanding shares by 2.1% from the end of June, to achieve better returns for shareholders.