the financial report shows that by the end of June 221, Alibaba's revenue was 25.74 billion yuan, slightly lower than the market expectation of 29.38 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 33.8%; In terms of profit performance, the operating profit in the first quarter was 3.847 billion yuan, down 11% year-on-year; After adjustment, EBITA was 41.731 billion yuan, down 8% year-on-year. Although it is higher than the market expectation of 38.8 billion yuan, it basically comes from internal cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and its main business is slightly weak.
this is a generally unsatisfactory financial report. The strange circle of "increasing income without increasing profits" has also begun to plague Alibaba. After the financial report was released, Alibaba's share price opened 1.88% higher, once rising over 2.5%, but closed down 1.35% the next day.
Before the release of the financial report, UBS believed that this round of Internet supervision may last at least until the end of 221, and it is estimated that the technical configuration has not bottomed out. It is suggested that the mainland Internet industry "reduce its holdings" as a whole, and Alibaba's share price will be lowered from $29 to $268.
in addition to the strict regulatory environment, the reason why the market is generally depressed is that in the current competitive environment, Alibaba's business development is still facing enormous challenges: the growth of revenue and users is weak, and the businesses such as community group buying and Alibaba Cloud, which are emphasized, are also facing tremendous pressure.
But this season, Ali's financial report also sent out more positive signals. In terms of income indicators, Ali changed the expression of "core business" to "business" for the first time, and 36Kr thought it was intended to show the impression of multi-engine drive to the outside world.
according to the financial report, the customer management income (including advertising and commission income) of "China Retail Business" under Alibaba Commercial Division only increased by 14% year-on-year, and its proportion in the total income decreased from 46% in the same period last year to 39%. However, "other" businesses (mainly composed of direct business, including Gaoxin Retail, Tmall Supermarket, Box Horse, Import Direct, Yintai, etc.). ) all achieved revenue of 54.84 billion yuan, an increase of 82% year-on-year, much higher than the growth rate of 34% of total revenue, accounting for 27% of total revenue.
after relying on the platform model to enjoy high-margin dividends for many years, Ali has increased the proportion of its own business (including the merged Gaoxin retail) in the past six months, trying to make the outside world dilute its platform concept, which is a very wise choice for both inside and outside.
Revenue and GMV growth are weak
In this quarter, Alibaba's revenue growth rate was lower than market expectations, with a year-on-year growth rate of only 33.8%, even lower than the worst period of the epidemic (38% in Q1, 22). Alibaba's revenue growth rate in the first ten quarters maintained a steady growth of 4% year-on-year.
the weak revenue growth is closely related to the weak growth of GMV, the decline of commission income and the bottleneck of user growth. This quarter, Taobao Tmall's revenue increased by less than 14%, hitting a new low.
Even if Tmall 618, the longest in history, was held, it failed to save the growth trend. Many merchants generally tell 36Kr that the GMV and user growth brought by the promotion of 618 are very limited. A beautician said that GMV's sales during the period of 618 only increased by 3% than usual.
it is worth noting that since the beginning of this quarter, the growth rate of GMV after the rejected bill is no longer announced by the entity e-commerce company headquartered in Taoda, which was 26% in the last quarter, which is already at a historical low.
an industry background is that, from a broader market perspective, the online retail sales of physical goods nationwide in the first half of this year was 5.3 trillion yuan, up only 18.7% year-on-year. In recent two years, the overall growth rate of e-commerce retail sales showed a downward trend. As the largest e-commerce platform in China, it is difficult for Alibaba to significantly outperform the market growth in terms of user scale and single-user GMV.
specific to the business level, revenue growth is weak. On the one hand, Alibaba continues to reduce the commission of merchants, which is related to the burden reduction of merchants. In this quarter, the growth rate of e-commerce commission+advertising revenue of Amoy University was 13.7%, which was at the low point of market expected growth rate (14%-17%). In an interview with 36Kr and other media, Yang Guang, the head of Tmall, revealed that Alibaba is expected to reduce the burden on Tmall merchants by nearly 1 billion yuan in 221. Since the beginning of the year, Alibaba has issued a number of incentive policies for large and small enterprises.
on the other hand, strict supervision forces the platform to gradually transform from efficiency and profit-oriented to "infrastructure". In addition to reducing the burden on merchants, Alibaba has also implemented a larger user subsidy policy, which has reduced the liquidity and profitability of Amoy.
the bottleneck of user growth that has lasted for several quarters has not been completely solved. Although Taobao's special edition and community group buying have brought some new users to Taobao, Alibaba's annual live buyers increased by 17 million this quarter (32 million last quarter, down 88% from last quarter). Among them, 1 million were drained by Taobao special edition, which means that the new users brought by community group buying to Alibaba's overall ecology are very limited, and perhaps more are the transformation of old users. In addition, Amoy e-commerce users only increased by 14 million this quarter, down 64% from the previous month, indicating that user retention was not satisfactory after the promotion.
under the background that user growth has not improved much, the overlapping "two-for-one" strategy has gradually failed, and e-commerce channels have gradually divided, and businesses that are extremely eager for traffic will turn to other platforms, which will further aggravate the growth rate of physical e-commerce GMV and the decline of Alibaba's revenue.
In fact, in order to gain more users, Alibaba has previously drained Taobao's e-commerce through Taobao Premium Edition, Taobao Content (increasing shopping business and enriching the short video content ecology of the platform), community group buying and other ecological businesses (excluding overseas business increment). However, from the current data, it has a certain effect, but it is still not enough.
it is necessary to drain water from the outside. Recently, Dow Jones reported that Alibaba and Tencent are considering opening up their ecosystems to each other, and both sides are making plans to relax restrictions. Specifically, Alibaba's initial measures may include introducing WeChat payment in Taobao and Tmall; Tencent may allow the content of Amoy e-commerce to be shared on WeChat, or allow WeChat users to use Alibaba's e-commerce services through applets.
if this cooperation really fails, it may solve the problem of Alibaba's traffic growth to some extent. At the financial report meeting, Alibaba executives also repeatedly stressed: "The initial intention of the Internet is interconnection. The big cycle between platforms, including the cycle of users, data and information, must be a small cycle that can surpass a single platform and bring new dividends. "
Many investment companies are under pressure
Alibaba has previously said in conference calls in several financial quarters that it will "exchange profits for growth and firmly create long-term value".
The slogan "Firmly create long-term value" can reveal a lot of information. On the one hand, it is reasonable to create compound interest for a long time, on the other hand, it shows that the life of enterprises is really difficult. For mature Internet companies including Alibaba, the period of high investment and high growth has ended.
in addition to benefiting merchants and users, Alibaba has also invested heavily in many important businesses. In this quarter, Alibaba's strategic investment loss was 13.9 billion yuan, which was mainly used for community group buying, Taobao special edition, local life service and Lazada business. Due to the increase in investment in investment business, the adjusted EBITA (Non-GAAP) also decreased by 8% year-on-year to RMB 41.731 billion.
let's take a look at the community group buying business that the market is most concerned about. According to the data disclosed in the financial report, the building area of the community business platform RDC increased by about 26% month-on-month, and the commodity trading volume (GMV) increased by about 2% month-on-month. In addition, Alibaba also mentioned in its financial report that community group buying is regarded as an important business of the new retail business segment.
according to 36Kr report, in June, the order volume of Box Horse Market was 6-7 million, far lower than the previous expectation of 1 million internal orders. A person familiar with the matter told 36Kr that Dai Shan, president of Ali MMC Commercial Group, was not satisfied with this, so she changed several senior executives internally.
the goal and task of Taobao special edition is still to drain Taobao e-commerce, bring more new users to sink into the market, and meet the needs of users who need cost performance under certain circumstances. At present, the annual active consumers of Taobao special edition reach 19 million, but the growth rate in a single quarter is only 1 million, which slows down. Growth has slowed down, but investment has not decreased. Since last quarter