Did Coronavirus Fears Weigh Down Alibaba’s Q3?

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA | BABA Price Prediction) released its fiscal third-quarter financial results before the markets opened on Thursday. The firm said that it had $2.61 in earnings per share (EPS) and $23.19 billion in revenue, which compares with consensus estimates of $2.22 in EPS and $22.46 in billion revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $1.81 in EPS and $17.06 billion in revenue.

Annual active consumers on the China retail marketplaces reached 711 million, an increase of 18 million from the trailing 12-month period ended in September. Mobile monthly active users on the China marketplace reached 824 million in December, an increase of 39 million over September 2019.

Revenue from the China commerce retail business increased 36% year over year to $15.87 billion, and the revenue from the China wholesale business increased by 25% to $483 million. International retail business revenues increased 27% to $1.06 billion and at the wholesale increased by 13% to $353 million.

As for the cloud computing business, revenues increased 62% year over year to $1.54 billion, primarily driven by increased revenue contributions from both the public cloud and hybrid cloud businesses.

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Daniel Zhang, board chair and chief executive of Alibaba, commented:

Our digital economy reached new heights with another record 11.11 Global Shopping Festival for our merchants and partners. Continued investment in user engagement, especially through social commerce content, contributed to our strong gains in annual active consumers. As a result of its rapid growth, our cloud computing services for the first time generated revenue of over RMB10 billion in a single quarter. In response to the coronavirus, we mobilized Alibaba ecosystem’s powerful forces of commerce and technology to fully support the fight against the outbreak, ensure supply of daily necessities for our communities and introduced practical relief measures for our merchants.

Alibaba stock traded down almost 2% early Thursday at $220.19 a share, in a 52-week range of $147.95 to $231.14. The consensus price target is $241.91.

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