, Columnist
Alibaba's Hobby Horses are Slowing
Slowing growth and continued losses at the e-commerce giant's new businesses are a cause for concern.
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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s numbers were impressive enough, I suppose.
Both revenue and earnings surpassed estimates, which is nothing to sneeze at, but that's become par for the course. Looking at the various divisions, though, it doesn't seem there's much progress at all over the past year.
Core commerce remains quite solid, but it's the new areas that remain a drag and suddenly don't look quite so exciting -- certainly not to the extent you'd expect from money-burning operations.