Alibaba Stock Slumps After Warnings About Lower Spending

Updated on

Alibaba shares continued to slide today after company management made some cautious comments during their presentation at Citi’s conference. The stock closed down 4.69% at $60.91 per share today.

Alibaba to have tough comparisons

At the Citi conference today, Alibaba Investor Relations Head Jane Penner warned that the company will face some tough comparisons in the “Other” revenue category in the third quarter. She said the reason for this is the anniversary of some items, according to Bloomberg.

Penner did say that despite China’s economic difficulties, trends there are stable, as are job creation and household net assets. As a result, she thinks consumers still can and will spend money, which of course is good for Alibaba.

Chinese consumers spending less per order

However, she added that they’re seeing some negative impacts on how much Chinese consumers are spending. She believes this is due to the “psychology” relating to the economic situation in China rather than a lack of ability to spend.

For example, she said this month they’re already seeing a lower average order value. She also thinks the gross merchandise volume for the September quarter will be lower than their previous expectations by in the mid-single digits even though traffic to the Alibaba website appears stable.

Citi analysts said after Penner’s comments that investors have taken them out of context. They also noted that she said their expectations haven’t dramatically changed.

Alibaba announces 11.11 shopping festival

Also today, announced its annual 11.11 shopping festival. The online retailer claims that 11.11 day now generates more sales than both Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Alibaba started the 11.11 shopping day in 2009 with only 27 merchants participating, but last year, over 27,000 brands and merchants participated. The online retailer took 278 million orders and moved $9.3 billion in gross merchandise volume through Alipay. Mobile purchases made up 42.6% of the gross merchandise volume, and consumers from more than 217 countries and regions took part.

In a press release, Alibaba said today that two big themes of 11.11 this year are globalization and offline-to-online. This year about 100,000 brick-and-mortar stores in China, including Suning and Intime, have collaboration agreements with Alibaba for marketing, customer management, logistics, and other business areas.

Amazon takes a cue from Alibaba?

Alibaba’s 11.11 appears to be similar to Amazon’s Prime day, which the U.S.-based online retailer held for the first time this year. Amazon may even have gotten the idea for Prime Day from Alibaba’s 11.11 shopping day, although it upped the game a bit as only Prime subscribers were eligible for the deal.

Amazon’s success with Prime day was similar to what Alibaba has seen with 11.11, as the company sold more on Prime Day this year than it did on Black Friday last year.

 

Leave a Comment