Alibaba Beats Revenue Forecast, But Shares Slide

China's Alibaba beat Q3 revenue forecasts on a pandemic-infused jump in e-commerce, but its shares slid nevertheless, as regulatory heat for Jack Ma's business continued. The company had also announced a bond sale worth as much as $5 billion.

Ma’s speech from October 24th, in which he blasted China's regulatory system, has led to the suspension of his Ant Group's $37 billion IPO just days before its listing, and continues to hit his empire.

Regulators have since launched an anti-trust probe into the tech sector, while tighter regulations for Ant are also being considered.

Alibaba CEO - Daniel Zhang said changing regulations for internet and Fintech firms in China are a near-term challenge. Alibaba also said it was "unable to complete a fair assessment" of the impact that Ant's stalled IPO will have on the company. 

Shares in Alibaba dropped 4% in Hong Kong on Wednesday, given total revenue rose 37% to 221.1 billion yuan in the three months ended December 31st, beating analysts' estimates of 214.4 billion yuan. Core commerce revenue from its main e-commerce sites rose 38% to a record high of 195.5 billion yuan. Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was 79.4 billion yuan, or 28.85 yuan per American depository share, compared to 52.3 billion yuan, or 19.55 yuan per ADS, a year earlier. Revenue for cloud computing saw a 50%  increase year on year, hitting 16.12 billion yuan.

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