Global ecommerce marketplace company Alibaba Group had a tough spring quarter — its fiscal Q1 — in its primary China home market, but it still managed a modest revenue gain thanks to its international and wholesale operations.

The company reported a 2% year over year drop in China retail ecommerce revenue. Alibaba’s China retail ecommerce revenue dropped to less than $15 billion for its first fiscal quarter, which ended June 30. But international and wholesale ecommerce grew in double digits to bring total Alibaba revenue up 4% to over $33 billion in Q1.

The company didn’t report gross merchandise volume figures to show the gross value of all third-party transactions, but it said it scored “high-single-digit online GMV growth and double-digit order growth year-over-year, driven by increase in the number of purchasers and purchase frequency.” In June, Alibaba said it was on track to grow GMV this year to as much as $60 billion, which would be 20% over last year’s GMV of $50 billion.

Alibaba owns the world’s two largest online marketplaces by gross merchandise value (GMV), Taobao and Tmall. Taobao ranks No. 1 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest such marketplaces by GMV. Tmall ranks No. 2. Both operate in China.

Alibaba emphasizes customer experience

Alibaba Group executives said they’re emphasizing improved customer experience to generate growth, which was most apparent at the company’s global retail site, AliExpress.com.

“The strong performance was driven by growth of cross-border businesses, in particular the Choice business on AliExpress,” Alibaba said. “During this quarter, our AliExpress and Trendyol platforms stepped up investments in initiatives to increase mindshare in select markets in Europe and the [Persian] Gulf region.”

The Choice business is a program through which Alibaba works with marketplace sellers to provide better product selection and quality control.

The company added that the AliExpress platform expanded its supplier base “and now includes local merchants to enrich its product offerings and better meet the needs of local consumers.”

Alibaba also noted that during the quarter, “AliExpress and Magazine Luiza (‘Magalu’), a leading retailer in Brazil, entered into a partnership in which Magalu will open and operate a storefront on AliExpress and vice versa.”

In addition, the company said its Alibaba Cloud segment hosted more than 11,000 hours of Olympic Games video content produced by the broadcasters.

It added: “This is the first Olympic Games to extensively use AI, with Alibaba Cloud’s AI technology deployed in 14 Olympic venues to generate high-fidelity 360-degree replays in real time.”

Alibaba breaks out revenue figures for Q1

For the fiscal Q1 ended June 30, Alibaba Group reported:

Alibaba consolidated revenue increased to $33.47 billion in Q1. That’s 4% year-over-year growth. Net income fell 27% to $3.31 billion. Meanwhile, total revenue through Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group grew 32% to $4.03 billion.

Retail revenue through AIDCG increased 38% to $3.26 billion. The international group’s retail sites include:

• The global AliExpress
• Daraz in South Asia
• Lazada in Southeast Asia
• Miravia in Spain
• Trendyol in Turkey and dozens of other countries in Europe and the Middle East

AIDCG’s wholesale revenue grew 12% to $771 million. The group’s flagship global B2B site is Alibaba.com.

Wholesale helps Q1 China revenue

• Total China revenue through the Taobao and Tmall Group dipped, to $15.60 billion. That’s a 1.0% year-over-year decrease.
• China retail ecommerce revenue at Taobao and Tmall Group fell to $14.78 billion. That’s down 2% year over year.
• China wholesale ecommerce revenue at Tabao and Tmall Group’s 1688.com grew 16% to $819.0 million.

Logistics services lead other gains

• Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Limited revenue increased 16% to $3.69 billion. “We continue to drive synergies between Cainiao and our cross-border ecommerce business, as Cainiao executes its strategy to strengthen its end-to-end capabilities through developing a highly digitalized global logistics network,” Alibaba said.
• Alibaba Group’s Cloud Intelligence Group revenue increased 6% to $3.65 billion.
• Digital Media Entertainment Group revenue increased 4% to $768 million.

Check back in for more earnings updates. Here’s last quarter’s update about Alibaba revenue and earnings.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. [email protected].

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