Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA)’s NYSE-listed shares climbed about 12% to about $134 in early Friday trading after the Chinese e-commerce and cloud-computing company reported better-than-expected earnings and stronger cloud growth for its first quarter 2025.
Alibaba saw its adjusted earnings per share for the period fall 10% to 14.75 yuan, although it surpassed the 14.16-yuan analyst consensus forecast, according to FactSet.
Its sales for the quarter rose 2% to 247.65 billion yuan, falling short of the 251.45-billion-yuan Wall Street estimate.
The company's Q1 Cloud Intelligence revenue, meanwhile, improved 26% to 33.3 billion yuan, up from 18% growth during the previous period.
“Driven by robust AI demand, Cloud Intelligence Group experienced accelerated revenue growth, and AI-related product revenue is now a significant portion of revenue from external customers,” Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu said in a statement.
Earlier on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Alibaba is testing a new custom, more versatile AI computing chip apparently in response to the Chinese government pressuring domestic companies not to buy Nvidia’s semiconductors.