01:16 PM EDT, 03/19/2026 (MT Newswires) -- (Corrects the currency for revenue consensus in the second paragraph and adds "renminbi" for last year's e-commerce sales figure in the fifth paragraph.)

Alibaba Group ( BABA ) reported lower-than-expected fiscal third-quarter earnings on Thursday, while the Chinese e-commerce giant's revenue fell short of estimates despite double-digit growth in its cloud business.

The company's adjusted earnings tumbled to 7.09 renminbi ($1.01) per American depositary share for the December quarter from 21.39 renminbi a year earlier. The consensus on FactSet was for 11.51 renminbi. Revenue improved 2% to 284.84 billion renminbi, but missed the Street's view for 289.29 billion renminbi.

Alibaba's ( BABA ) New York Stock Exchange-listed shares fell 5.8% in the most recent premarket activity.

Revenue in the cloud intelligence business jumped 36% to 43.28 billion renminbi, with artificial intelligence-related product revenue delivering triple-digit growth for the tenth consecutive quarter, Chief Executive Eddie Wu said in a statement. "Our model-as-a-service (MaaS) platform is showing strong growth, emerging as a new engine driving cloud business growth," according to Wu.

Sales in the China e-commerce segment advanced 6% to 159.35 billion renminbi. Within this division, e-commerce ticked up to 131.58 billion renminbi from 130.66 billion renminbi in the prior-year quarter. China commerce wholesale sales inclined 5% to 6.92 billion renminbi.

The international digital commerce business grew 4% to about 39.2 billion renminbi, buoyed by gains in retail and wholesale. The all others segment, which includes Cainiao, Amap and Hujing digital media and entertainment, fell 25% to 67.34 billion renminbi, mainly due to the disposal of the Sun Art and Intime businesses, the company said.

"The rapid growth of AI + Cloud businesses in recent quarters gives us confidence to scale investments, further strengthening our full-stack AI capabilities," Chief Financial Officer Toby Xu said. "Our strong liquidity position and resilient cash generation provide a solid foundation to support sustained strategic investment."

Earlier this month, Chinese e-commerce group JD.com (JD) recorded weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, although its revenue topped projections. In February, technology giant Amazon.com (AMZN) reported fourth-quarter earnings below Wall Street's estimates, even as cloud computing revenue grew more than expected.

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