Chinese online commerce giant Alibaba announced on Thursday that its net income fell 81% in the second quarter of its fiscal year, as Beijing tightened its grip on the digital sector.
Chinese online commerce giant Alibaba announced on Thursday that its net income fell 81% in the second quarter of its fiscal year, as Beijing tightened its grip on the digital sector.
For the months of July to September, the Chinese group obtained a profit of 5.37 billion yuan (841 million dollars), compared to 28.7 billion yuan in the same period of the previous year.
A heavyweight in the sector and once cited as an example, Alibaba was the first company to fall victim to last year tightening controls in the digital arena by the Chinese authorities.
Since then, Beijing has extended the regulations to other sectors, such as video games or private classes.
Earlier this year, the group founded by charismatic billionaire Jack Ma was fined 2.3 billion euros ($ 2.6 billion) for monopolistic practices.
Dragged down by this record fine, Alibaba posted quarterly losses of nearly € 1 billion.
Digital companies have long benefited from relatively lax legislation in China, especially on personal data.
New York-listed Alibaba ADRs closed Thursday’s trading session down 11.15% to $ 143.60 each.