Some records of Alibaba's earnings conference call

The records are a bit messy, please bear with me and refer to the official release for accuracy!

In short: Achieving double-digit GMV growth under such challenging circumstances is no easy feat. Overall, I'm optimistic—Alibaba is getting back on track. Right now, profitability isn't the focus during this investment phase. As long as we're on the right path, distance doesn't matter!

From the financial report, international business grew by 45%, which has always been a key point I’ve been bullish on!

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Issues Regarding Taotian E-commerce

Question: What’s the status of Taotian’s commercialization efforts?

Answer:

1. We’ve been consistently investing in this area, with disciplined spending focused on results, and we’ll continue to ramp up investments.

2. The "Full-Site Push" is currently in small-scale testing, with the model being adjusted. We expect it to gain traction in 12 months.

Question: What drove the growth in domestic TV GMV? What actions have we taken to increase market share?

Answer: Overall, it’s about enhancing user experience—winning users over with great products, competitive pricing, and excellent service. We tailor our offerings and pricing strategies to different supply scenarios! Additional note: In the domestic e-commerce competition, Taobao still holds its advantage as a "marketplace"—the so-called "Everything on Taobao!"

Question: Congratulations on Alibaba’s solid results—5% CMR growth and double-digit GMV growth. What’s the trend for April and May?

Answer:

1. We’ve indeed seen momentum in GMV and CMR growth, and the trend continued in April and May. Further commercialization efforts will boost CMR growth, though it will take some time. We expect CMR to catch up with GMV growth.

Joseph Tsai: To add an implicit layer to the question—from a macro perspective, Chinese consumers still have substantial savings. Data from the May Day holiday shows consumers are gradually becoming more willing to spend. With local real estate stimulus measures, consumer confidence is slowly recovering.

Eddie Wu added: This year, our primary goal is to increase user purchase frequency through improved experience. CMR growth isn’t our most urgent task right now. Once we enhance the core user experience, boosting CMR won’t be an issue. As the former lead of Alimama, who built commercialization from scratch, I’m confident in driving CMR growth.
 

Cloud Business Questions

Question: You mentioned double-digit growth for the second half. Can you break down the revenue composition of the cloud business?

Answer:

1. Currently, cloud growth is primarily driven by AI, which also requires investment—the two are complementary. We’ve invested in a series of AI companies, but the funds are converted into cloud services. For AI, we’re not prioritizing profitability in the early stages.

2. Public cloud has already achieved double-digit growth in the recent quarter, though it was offset by other investments.

Question: What’s the ultimate goal for the large model? Maximum parameters or multimodal capabilities?

Answer:

1. Our goal aligns with everyone else’s—AGI, integrating text, audio, and video into a comprehensive large model.

2. Internally, we have three objectives: First, exploring AGI; second, integrating Tongyi’s large model with Alibaba Cloud’s hardware and software to provide accessible inference services; third, supporting other Alibaba businesses (e.g., DingTalk, Quark) with foundational AI capabilities for rapid adoption.

Internationalization Questions

Question: Is the investment scale expanding? What’s the status of full and semi-hosted models?

Answer:

1. We’re expanding investments tailored to each market, while also focusing on efficiency and catching up on monetization models.

2. Some categories suit cross-border models, while others work better with local fulfillment. We’re actively recruiting local merchants and adapting models (full or semi-hosted) to each market’s needs.

Question: International growth has been rapid. How will you sustain it? Which categories, users, and countries will see the most investment?

Answer:

1. Our focus remains on lightweight, cross-border-friendly categories where we excel, like air-shippable goods.

2. We’re expanding into new categories, such as shipping bulkier items to Korea via sea freight.

3. This year, we’ll leverage local platforms like Lazada and Trendyol for synergistic market expansion.
 

Shareholder Returns

Question: The company has been generous with dividends. How will you ensure long-term shareholder returns?

Answer:

1. We’ve been executing buybacks for years, with shareholder approval. We have $29B+ remaining until 2027 and will continue.

2. We’ll balance cash flow with business growth, especially in AI, to deliver returns—whether through dividends or stock appreciation from new ventures.

Apologies for the rough formatting—this was compiled on mobile.

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