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Alibaba's revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 was 205.56 billion yuan, down 1% year on year

Alibaba's Q1 fiscal 2023 financial results: revenue of 205.56 billion yuan, adjusted net profit of 30.25 billion yuan

Sina technology news Beijing time on August 4 evening news, Alibaba (NYSE:BABA; HK:09988) today released its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 ending June 30, 2022 (Note: Alibaba's fiscal year is not synchronized with the natural year, starting on April 1 of each year and ending on March 31 of the following year). Earnings showed Alibaba's first-quarter revenue of 205.56 billion yuan, down 1% year on year, compared with estimates of 203.97 billion yuan. Adjusted net profit of 30.25 billion yuan, down 30% year on year; The adjusted revenue per ADS is 11.73 yuan.

After the earnings release,Alibaba Group Executive Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang, Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai and CFO Xu HongAttended the subsequent conference call to interpret the results and answer analyst questions.

　　The following is the main content of the analyst Q&A session on the conference call:

　　Ronald Keung, Goldman Sachs analyst: ‍ Zhang was just saying that there are signs of recovery starting in June. Can you give us some updates on what's happened to either sales or customer management revenue? What is management's outlook for the second half of the year, and how does management view the medium to long term growth trend of the online consumer market? What is the market pattern of e-commerce?

　　Zhang yong: ‍Regarding the recent consumption trends, we can see from our platform that after April and May, there has been a recovery in June, and with the recovery of the supply chain ‍‍, especially the normalization of the logistics network ‍‍‍, ‍ the capacity of these infrastructures has been restored. We also see that in terms of consumption, including through 618, we also have positive growth in 618 consumption quarter ‍‍, achieving a good result. As we move into July, we see this trend continuing, and the overall performance in July will definitely be a bit better than that in June ‍‍. ‍ In this process, we also need to judge the future trend from consumer psychology and consumer expectations.

According to the public data, in addition to ‍‍GDP growth and the growth of social retail sales, there is another figure we are very concerned about, that is, the proportion of the average consumption expenditure in disposable income, 202‍‍ The figure released by the National Bureau of Statistics in the first half of the year was 64%, but the figure of last year was 69%, so there is still a significant decline. At the same time we also see, than the decline of urban areas payments than rural ‍ ‍ more even, this is outbreaks and current economic trends, consumer expectations of a reflection, so we can see ‍ consumption in the process of recovery, but the overall consumption desire, obviously also a process of recovery. ‍ ‍

For our China retail platform, the tendency of the whole and ‍ ‍ ‍ merchants investment will, have always been very positive, especially in times of trouble, owners hope to better to pull his business, so we see the general merchants ‍ ‍ willingness and desire to boost sales, to get more consumers, In fact, ‍ is as strong as ever, even stronger. Every business will face its own challenges, so the more they are like this, the more they want to achieve better results through digital platforms. ‍

　　Thomas Chung, Jefferies analyst: The first question about the company's cost control, China's commercial business tax rates and amortisation has very good improvement, other plate of tax rate and amortisation also has a good increase, is China's commercial business tax rate and amortisation, as well as the overall tax rate and amortisation, in the second quarter and the ‍ trend in the next few quarters? If we continue the current direction of cost control, is there a good chance of positive growth in the next quarter or two? Another question, the company's self-run business revenue is doing very well, ‍ could you please ask the management to talk about the strategy, future direction and profit margin of the self-run business?

　　Xu Hong: ‍As for cost control, ‍ we also said in the earnings meeting of the last quarter that we will pay great attention to cost optimization and related cost control. In this process, we have developed a lot of strategies for cost optimization control and implemented different strategies for different businesses. ‍ In this quarter, The whole cost optimization we still get a relatively good result. ‍

In the next few quarters of this fiscal year, our cost ‍‍ optimization control plan will continue to be implemented, ‍‍ focus on optimizing costs and improving efficiency and other aspects, the implementation of strategy is a key point, we will firmly continue to implement the implementation of cost optimization. ‍ Financially, we have a lot of flexibility ‍‍. We will evaluate and balance the cost optimization with the investment in certain areas. In some areas, including technology as I mentioned earlier and ‍ basic capacity building, we will continue to invest firmly to achieve longer term, sustainable development. ‍

Regarding the issue of margin before tax, interest and amortization, it is natural that in the process of overall efficiency improvement and cost optimization, it will eventually be reflected in the margin before tax, interest and amortization. We also believe that ‍'s commitment to high quality and efficient growth will ultimately drive improvement in EBITDA margins. ‍

　　Zhang yong: ‍Let me just add the question about cost optimization and profit margin. ‍ I want to emphasize that for Alibaba, cost optimization is not a financial perspective at all. It is highly related to our overall strategy ‍‍ selection, environmental judgment, stage ‍‍ and strategic choice. I in the last quarter and this quarter's earnings all spoke at the meeting, is our consistent pursuit of high quality growth management policy, under the management policy, we ‍ ‍ pursuit can good service quality, user can build high quality ‍ ‍ digital business infrastructure, ‍ ‍ and continuous technology innovation of high quality, this is we can promote business ‍ ‍ growth, And a foundation for more sustainable, better financial results, so we're sticking to that. ‍

Since the beginning of the new fiscal year, this is the first financial quarter. According to the changes in the macro environment, especially on the basis of the milestone of 1 billion annual active consumers completed last year ‍‍, ‍ we will focus on increasing the absolute number of users in the future. To be able to serve our existing users -- in fact, we have 1 billion consumers ‍ covering almost all active consumers in ‍ China ‍‍ -- to be able to serve those consumers, to do a good job of operating them in different tiers, and to increase the share of each tier's users ‍ wallet ‍‍. The change of work focus is of great help to the overall efficiency optimization and the improvement of profit margin. ‍

(In continuous update...)