Alibaba shares rise as AI drives cloud sales jump
Alibaba will showcase its AI technology application achievements in Alibaba Cloud at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, China, on July 26, 2025.
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Alibaba’s It posted better-than-expected revenue in its fiscal second quarter, driven by increased sales in its main cloud computing division.
Here’s how the company performed according to LSEG estimates in its second fiscal quarter ending September 30:
- Revenue: 247.8 billion Chinese yuan ($34.8 billion) versus 242.65 billion yuan.
Revenues increased 5% year over year.
Investors are focused on Alibaba’s cloud computing division, which records AI-related revenue. Over the past few quarters, Alibaba’s cloud revenue growth has accelerated.
Alibaba reported cloud computing revenue rose 34% year-on-year to 39.8 billion yuan, against expectations of 37.9 billion yuan. This growth rate was faster than the 26% rate recorded in the June quarter.
In September, the company announced plans to increase spending on artificial intelligence models and infrastructure development to an additional 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) over three years. announced in February.
On Monday, Alibaba said the Chinese giant’s Qwen app, a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, surpassed 10 million downloads in the first week of its public launch. The app is powered by Alibaba’s Qwen AI models.
Meanwhile, the company is investing heavily in the cutthroat instant trading market. This is a product offering from Alibaba and some of its Chinese e-commerce rivals that promises super-fast delivery on certain products.
Investment in this new segment has put pressure on Alibaba’s overall business profitability, even as cloud computing remains strong.
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