Alibaba Group Holding, China’s e-commerce and artificial intelligence powerhouse, on Thursday for the first time disclosed the production progress of its T-Head chip unit, as quarterly results missed estimates.
It reported a 2 per cent year-on-year increase in revenue to 284.8 billion yuan (US$40.7 billion) for the December quarter, but missed the 289.8 billion yuan consensus forecast compiled by Bloomberg.
The company also “brought its proprietary GPU [graphics processing unit] into production at scale”. The unit, mentioned for the first time in Alibaba’s earnings, delivered more than 100,000 units of its most advanced AI chip, the Zhenwu 810E, the South China Morning Post reported in January.
The results come as the group’s core e-commerce business remains constrained by weak consumer spending amid macro headwinds, while its cloud and AI operations continue to gain traction but weigh on near-term profitability.
Net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders dropped 67 per cent to 16.3 billion yuan for the third quarter.
Alibaba’s adjusted Ebita – earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation, an alternative measure of a company’s financial health – fell 57 per cent year on year to 23.4 billion yuan, missing analysts’ estimate of 31.4 billion yuan.
