BEIJING, February 24 (TMTPOST)— Alibaba saw slowdown in sales growth for three consecutive quarters despite the Chinese e-commerce giant’s serving more overseas consumers than ever.

Source: Visual China

In the quarter ended December 31, 2021, Alibaba posted the worst sales growth since it became a U.S.-listed company in 2014 with revenue of RMB242.58 billion (US$38.07 billion) and 10% of year-over-year (YoY) increase, missing the Refinitiv consensus estimates’ RMB246.37 billion. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per ADS that quarter fell by 23% YoY to RMB16.87 (US$2.65), beating the expected RMB16.18 per share. The net income was RMB19.22 billion (US$3 bilion), down 75% YoY, mainly due to the impairment of goodwill of RMB25.14 billion (US$3.9 billion) and the decrease in net gains arising from the changes in fair value of the equity investments.

For the twelve months ended December 31, 2021, annual active consumers of the Alibaba Ecosystem across the world reached about 1.28 billion, including 979 million consumers in China and 301 million consumers overseas. This is the first time for the company that has more than 300 million consumers outside the home market.

The international commerce retail business had a robust growth with a quarterly net increase of 16 million annual active consumers and 25% YoY combined order growth, driven by robust growth in Lazada of 52% and Trendyol of 49%, which was partially offset by a decrease in orders for AliExpress in Europe due to value-added tax levied on cross-border parcels below €22 in value. In comparison, the China commerce businesses had a net gain of about 20 million active consumers and physical goods gross merchandise volume (GMV) for two leading marketplaces Taobao and Tmall just recorded single-digit YoY increase, which was blamed for slowing market conditions as well as heated competition in domestic market.

The slowdown in sales was unsurprising since Alibaba showed lackluster in last year’s Singles Day, the largest annual online shopping holiday. Alibaba’s Singles Day, also known as Double 11, generated a total of RMB54.03 billion (US$84 billion) in sales from the first day of November, which set another record but only rose 8% from the same period in 2020 as the slowest growth since it launched the promotion event in 2009. Its peer JD.com witnessed a more than 28% jump YoY with a record of over RMB349.1 billion (US$54 billion) in GMV.

In the latest quarterly report, Alibaba said GMV for apparel and accessories and consumer electronic categories were slower than overall average growth in China. Alibaba’s biggest product categories--apparel, sportswear, skin care and cosmetics happened to be the categories that saw most seriously slowdown in Chinese consumers’ spending, noted Pacific Epoch’s analyst Vinci Zhang.