Since March, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba said it's seen a "steady recovery" in the region, but cautioned that the road to economic recovery remains unclear.
Despite virus-related restrictions on denting operations, the company's revenues increased 22 per cent in the three months to March 31. The benefit, driven by demand for food, electronics and cloud computing, was stronger than expected. Disruptions in the supply chain and investment losses have weighed overall on its results.
The output of China's economy-in which Alibaba is a major player-is being closely watched as a glimpse of how the rest of the world will fare after sudden economic shutdowns aimed at regulating Covid-19 's spread. The country's government said this week it would not set a target for economic growth. This is the first time since 1990 she has declined to do so.
Many multinational businesses have also scrapped predictions for the year ahead, citing pandemic uncertainty. Alibaba, which operates one of the biggest shopping and digital media websites in the world, also warned of confusion on Friday. Yet it told investors that, compared to 35 percent in the previous year, it projected sales growth of about 27 percent over the next 12 months.
However, in the three months up to March 31 Alibaba 's profits were almost completely wiped out. The company said this was largely due to a loss of return on investment. In the same period , the company reported sales of $16bn (114.3bn yuan, £13.1bn), with revenues on its core shopping websites rising by almost 19 per cent. Sales in the cloud services division of the company jumped 58%.
Yet its foreign businesses experienced substantially slower growth. This branch includes Lazada shopping website in Southeast Asia and accounts for about 7 per cent of the company 's revenue.
