Deals
Alibaba Spends for Sales Growth as Most Lucrative Business Slows
- Profit plummets after share-based compensation jumps
- Alibaba’s trying to diversify as competition intensifies
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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. reported its fastest pace of growth in more than four years by wringing more revenue from its push into cloud computing and entertainment, mitigating the slowdown of its most lucrative business.
Billionaire Chairman Jack Ma’s free-spending ways helped the e-commerce heavyweight side-step a Chinese economic slowdown and fallout from the U.S.-China trade battle. But competition from rivals backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. is hitting the lucrative fees it charges to help merchants with marketing, a measure known as customer management revenue, and creating a threat to future profit.