Alibaba posted an operating loss of 7.663 billion yuan ($1.170 billion) in its fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31 this year, the e-commerce giant's first quarterly loss since going public, mainly affected by fines from an antitrust investigation.
Excluding that one-time impact, its operating profit was RMB 10.565 billion, up 48 percent year-on-year, according to its earnings report released Thursday.
Alibaba's total revenue for the quarter was RMB 187.4 billion, exceeding market expectations of RMB 180.4 billion and up 64 percent year-on-year.
Alibaba's global annual active consumers reached 1 billion in the quarter, and its Chinese retail market annual active consumers reached 811 million, representing net growth of 85 million and 32 million year-on-year and quarter- on-quarter, respectively. Approximately 70% of new annual active consumers came from less developed regions.
The average annual spending amount (ARPU) of Taobao and Tmall users was 9,200 yuan, the company said.
Revenue from the company's cloud business was RMB 16.76 billion, up 37 percent year-on-year, missing market expectations of RMB 18.14 billion.
Alibaba said this was mainly due to a decline in revenue from a single customer in the Internet industry. The customer has a sizable business outside of China and had been using Alibaba's overseas cloud services in the past, but decided to terminate its international business with Alibaba based on non-product related requirements.
For fiscal year 2022, Alibaba expects total annual revenue to exceed RMB 930 billion.
The company plans to use all incremental profits and additional capital investment in fiscal 2022 to support platform merchants, as well as invest in new businesses and key strategic areas.
Alibaba shares closed down 6.28 percent to $206.08 on Thursday. The stock fell 20 percent in the past six months.
