China’s Alibaba shares fall 10% and lose $20 billion in market value

Shares of China’s Alibaba Group Holding Co., Ltd Alibaba Group Holding Limited A sharp decline occurred during trading on Friday, causing huge losses in the company’s market value of about $20 billion, resulting in the main stock index falling more than 2% in Hong Kong.

It came after the China-based technology giant and electronic stores reported its quarterly business results for the third quarter of 2023 on Thursday, showing a turnaround for the group after a loss in the same quarter last year.

According to the report, Alibaba Group’s third-quarter revenue rose 9% to 224.8 billion Chinese yuan (or the equivalent of 30.01 billion US dollars), close to but below market estimates of 224.32 billion Chinese yuan.

At the same time, Alibaba’s net profit for the third quarter was diluted to 26.7 billion yuan (or the equivalent of $3.6 billion), compared with a net loss of 22.4 billion yuan incurred by the group in the same quarter a year earlier. Earnings per share rose about 21% to 1.35 yuan (or $0.19) in the third quarter.

But despite good results that showed a significant improvement in the company’s performance, Alibaba announced that it was canceling its previous plans to separate its cloud business unit. AliCloud The move to become an independent subsidiary caused heavy losses in Alibaba Group’s shares on the Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges.

Alibaba pointed out that the decision was prompted by concerns over US restrictions on exports of semiconductors used in artificial intelligence applications announced by the US last October and US restrictions on rival Tencent. Tencent Holdings It expressed similar concerns this week, explaining that the restrictions would force it to seek domestically produced alternatives.

However, Alibaba Chairman Joseph Tsai confirmed that the company will now focus on growing its cloud business unit and providing the necessary investment to grow its artificial intelligence business, and said that Alibaba will move forward with listing Alibaba’s logistics unit. CainiaoHong Kong Stock Exchange next September.

In trading, Hong Kong-listed Alibaba shares fell (Hong Cheng:9988) By about 9.90% to 73,250 Hong Kong dollars, and shares of Nasdaq-listed Alibaba plunged 7.68% to 143.02 US dollars in pre-market trading, the biggest one-day decline. A year, leading to losses of about $20 billion in Alibaba’s market value.