Alibaba quarterly revenue misses estimates, slowest growth in more than three

Alibaba shares skidded to a record low in New York on Wednesday after China’s biggest e-commerce company posted its slowest revenue growth in over three years. Estimize.com further issues a sales estimate of $3.42 billion, suggesting the company would beat the Street by $44 million this quarter.

The health of Alibaba’s mobile business is being closely monitored because the company’s earnings took a hit last year as it plowed money into its apps.

Investor confidence has been shaken, with the company’s market value plunging $100 billion, amid a domestic economy growing at the weakest pace since 1990 and lawsuits over counterfeits.

Alibaba is being squeezed by price cuts and competition in China’s bigger cities, a shift to shopping on smartphones that generates less advertising revenue and the country’s slowest economic growth since 1990.

The $64,000 question: Is Alibaba stock finally a buy after its nine-month, 36% drubbing, or could things still get worse from here? The company’s shares are trading at $72.75 apiece, which is still 4.5 percent above its IPO price of $68, but is below its peak of $120.

Alibaba Group (BABA) has announced a $4 billion share buyback program over two years, for offset the impact of the Alibaba’s share based compensation programs.

Gross merchandise volumes transacted on China retail marketplaces rose 34 percent to $109 billion, while mobile GMV surged 125 percent to $60 billion.

Revenue from cloud computing more than doubled to 485 million Chinese yuan ($78 million).

“We manage our business and execute our growth strategy for the long term, and short-term movement won’t affect our strategy”, chief executive officer Daniel Zhang said during a conference call.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a holding company.

In recent months, the company’s founder Jack Massachusetts handed over the top seat to Zhang and said it was were cutting back on spending by instituting a hiring freeze. Mobile GMV as a percentage of the total rose to 55% from 33% in the same period a year ago and from 51% in the prior quarter.

Sales on mobile devices made up more than half of Alibaba’s retail total for the first time.

In January, China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce alleged that Alibaba Group allowed merchants to operate without required business licenses and to sell fake wine and handbags.

It’s official – the once-lauded Alibaba Group Holding (BABA) has become a major letdown.

And in a somewhat curious move, Alibaba announced earlier this week that it was buying a 20% stake in Chinese electronics retailer Suning for $4.6 billion. “By making Macy’s accessible in China through Alibaba’s Tmall Global, we have an opportunity to deepen our relationship with worldwide customers and to grow sales”.