On Thursday, Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba announced an unexpected 14 percent year-on-year gain in quarterly sales, despite a broader economic slump.
Alibaba is a major role in China’s burgeoning digital economy and the owner of a large online retail platform.
The performance of the Hangzhou-based firm is thus regarded as a gauge of domestic consumption, which has recently slowed.
China entered deflation for the first time since 2021 on Wednesday, the latest in a long line of indicators pointing to a decline in the world’s second-largest economy.
Alibaba’s revenue in the first quarter of its fiscal year, which began on April 1, was 234.1 billion yuan ($32.5 billion), exceeding expert expectations.
Alibaba’s net profit increased by 51% year on year, reaching 34.3 billion yuan in the April-June period.
