By Tracy Qu

Alibaba Group's fourth-quarter revenue grew as consumer sentiment held up and the e-commerce giant's AI efforts continued to bear fruit, offsetting challenges from competition at home and trade uncertainties abroad.

The Hangzhou, China-based company on Thursday said revenue rose 6.6% to 236.45 billion yuan, equivalent to $32.80 billion. The growth in Alibaba's core e-commerce and cloud businesses supported the top-line figure, which was in line with analysts' expectations.

Net profit for the quarter ended March nearly quadrupled to 12.38 billion yuan from a low base a year earlier but missed a FactSet consensus estimate. Adjusted net profit--which excludes the effects of share-based compensation expenses, investment gains and losses, some impairments and other items--climbed 22% to 29.85 billion yuan.

Chief Financial Officer Toby Xu said the company delivered a strong quarter. "We are confident in our business outlook and will continue to invest in our core businesses to strengthen our competitive advantages," Xu said.

Alibaba has been navigating a cooling Chinese economy and rising competition in online shopping from the likes of PDD Holdings' Pinduoduo e-commerce platform and ByteDance's short-video app Douyin.

The latest quarterly results showed continued strength in Alibaba's core domestic e-commerce business. Sales from its Taobao and Tmall platforms rose 8.7% to 101.37 billion yuan. Customer management revenue, a metric gauging how much Alibaba earned from merchants, increased 12%.

Investors are closely watching to see how U.S. tariffs could affect the tech titan's business. The U.S. this week cut its "de minimis" tariff on low-value goods from China, easing a headwind for companies that ship to the U.S.

Alibaba's fast-expanding overseas e-commerce unit posted a 22% rise in revenue to 33.58 billion yuan in the three months to March, before the U.S. announced tariffs on China and other countries in April.

The company has also been investing heavily in its AI business, planning to spend at least $53 billion over the next three years to build out artificial-intelligence and cloud-computing infrastructure.

Alibaba has described AI as a "once in a generation" opportunity and plans to integrate AI across its businesses. AI-related product revenue achieved triple-digit growth for the seventh consecutive quarter, Chief Executive Eddie Wu said Thursday.

The company's cloud-computing unit reported a 18% increase in sales to 30.13 billion yuan for the latest quarter.

The results come after rival JD.com reported better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter on improved Chinese consumer sentiment.

Citi analysts last month noted that Alibaba's valuation remained attractive, saying that its international business has "relatively small exposure to the U.S. market."

For the full year, the company's net profit climbed 62% to 129.47 billion yuan on a 5.9% increase in revenue to 996.35 billion yuan.

Alibaba's American depositary receipts, which have risen nearly 60% so far this year, fell more than 5.5% in premarket trading after the results.

Write to Tracy Qu at tracy.qu@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 15, 2025 07:41 ET (11:41 GMT)

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