On the evening of November 16th, Alibaba released its second quarter report for the 2024 fiscal year as of September 30th. At the analyst conference call, Alibaba's Chairman of the Board, Cai Chongxin, and CEO, Wu Yongming, re highlighted the priorities of Alibaba's new strategy. This includes temporarily suspending the IPO of Hema Fresh and no longer promoting the complete separation of Cloud Intelligence Group. At the same time, Alibaba's first batch of strategic innovation businesses -1688, Xianyu, DingTalk, and Quark - emerged. According to Wu Yongming, the above-mentioned strategic innovation business will operate as an independent subsidiary, breaking the previous positioning limitations within the group and adopting a more independent strategy to face the widest market. The group will continue to invest in it over a period of 3 to 5 years.
This is the first time Cai Chongxin has participated in an analyst conference call since assuming the position of Chairman of Alibaba. When discussing the progress of Cainiao's IPO, Cai Chongxin said, "Although the success of the IPO transaction depends on market conditions and relevant approvals, we are confident in Cainiao's business fundamentals." Looking towards the future, he said that Alibaba is more suitable than ever to invest in future growth and is fully prepared. At the end of this fiscal quarter, Alibaba Group's net cash was $63 billion, with free cash flow reaching $27 billion in the past 12 months. Alibaba is in the best financial position to invest for growth, "said Cai Chongxin.
The latest financial report data shows that Alibaba achieved revenue of 224.79 billion yuan during the period, a year-on-year increase of 9%; Adjusted EBITA (a non GAAP financial indicator) increased by 18% year-on-year to 42.845 billion yuan, exceeding market expectations; The non GAAP net profit was 40.188 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19%.
Among them, Cainiao, which has submitted an independent IPO application, has a quarterly revenue of 22.823 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25%, mainly driven by the revenue from cross-border logistics performance solutions. During the same period, Cainiao's adjusted EBITA was 906 million yuan, and its profitability continued to improve.
Alibaba also confirmed in its financial report that Hema's initial public offering plan is temporarily suspended, and the group is evaluating the market conditions and other factors necessary to ensure successful project implementation and enhance shareholder value. At the same time, Alibaba International Digital Business Group is preparing for external financing.
Wu Yongming revealed that Alibaba will have three important priority directions for the future: technology driven internet platform business, AI driven technology business, and global business network. He also provided a comprehensive introduction to the development strategies and priorities of each business group for the first time.
When discussing the future development priorities of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, Wu Yongming reiterated that Alibaba Group will maintain long-term and resolute investment in Alibaba Cloud's strategic direction, and Cloud Intelligence Group will continue to maintain an independent company operation mode, adopting a CEO responsibility system authorized by the board of directors.
This fiscal quarter, Alibaba Cloud continued to improve revenue quality by reducing revenue from project based contracts with lower profit margins. At the same time, revenue from public cloud products and services increased, driving profitability optimization. Adjusted EBITA increased by 44% year-on-year to 1.409 billion yuan. Alibaba Cloud has advantages in pricing power, high renewal rate, and providing scalable replication of cloud computing infrastructure resources and application service products, "said Wu Yongming." In the future, we will continue to make trade-offs between all products and business models, reduce project based sales orders, increase investment in public cloud core products, and continuously improve the revenue quality of cloud business
Cai Chongxin stated that Alibaba will continue to support business development with a strong balance sheet. In addition, although each business operates independently, Alibaba will ensure long-term strategic synergy between each business. In the future, measures will be taken to enhance shareholder returns by improving the investment return rate of the business, utilizing cash flow to invest in future growth, realizing the value of non core assets, distributing dividends, and promoting stock repurchases.