The Hangzhou-based company is one of the biggest players in China's tech industry, with operations spanning retail, digital payment, artificial intelligence and entertainment.
This year has seen its share price rollercoaster on a wave of investor enthusiasm about Chinese AI capabilities that began in January, followed by a steep drop last month triggered by US President Donald Trump's global trade blitz.
The firm's revenue during the fiscal year ended March 31 totalled 996.3 billion yuan ($138.2 billion), according to results posted to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, up six percent from the previous twelve-month period.
Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders rose to 129.5 billion yuan, the statement showed, a jump of 62 percent year-on-year according to AFP calculations.
In the final quarter alone, Alibaba saw revenue of 236.5 billion yuan, narrowly coming up short of a Bloomberg forecast.
Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders during the quarter reached 12.4 billion yuan, surging 279 percent from the low base of 3.3 billion yuan recorded during the same period last year.
"Our results this quarter and for the full fiscal year demonstrate the ongoing effectiveness of our 'user first, AI-driven' strategy, with core business growth continuing to accelerate," said CEO Eddie Wu in a statement.
The growth is another positive sign for China's tech sector, which has garnered revamped interest from investors since the shock release in January of advanced AI chatbot DeepSeek -- apparently developed for a fraction of the cost thought necessary.
Alibaba and fellow tech giants Tencent and Baidu are now funnelling large sums in a new race to develop and integrate the most cutting-edge AI applications.
South Korea fines China's Temu for user data violations
Seoul (AFP) May 15, 2025 -
South Korea has fined Chinese e-commerce giant Temu nearly one million dollars for illegally transferring Korean users' personal information to China and other countries, a data protection watchdog said Thursday.
Chinese platforms such as Shein, Temu and AliExpress have skyrocketed in global popularity in recent years, offering a vast selection of products at stunningly low prices that have helped them take on US titan Amazon.
Temu outsources and stores users' data with companies in several countries, including China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan, according to Seoul's Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC).
But the company "failed to disclose in its privacy policy or notify users that personal data would be entrusted to overseas entities," it said in a statement.
The PIPC said it fined Temu around 1.39 billion won (US$997,624) for violating the data protection act.
The watchdog said Temu also failed to supervise overseas companies, including on data protection, and did not properly inspect their handling of personal information.
As of 2023, an average of 2.9 million users in South Korea were using Temu daily, but the company did not designate a local representative as required by South Korean data protection law, the watchdog said.
Temu also complicated the account deletion process with seven steps, making it "difficult for users to exercise their rights", it added.
Temu respects the "decision by Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission and cooperated fully with the investigation", a company spokesperson told AFP.
"We made improvements during the process to align with local requirements. We support efforts that promote consumer trust and strengthen data transparency," they added.
Thursday's announcement comes weeks after the watchdog said Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek was transferring personal data to a cloud services platform without users' consent.
South Korea has previously blocked downloads of DeepSeek and moved to restrict its use on government-linked devices.
The South Korean watchdog also fined AliExpress around 1.98 billion won last year for illegally transfering Korean users' data overseas.
And it fined social media giant Meta 21.6 billion won last year for illegally harvesting sensitive data including sexual orientation from nearly a million South Korean Facebook users and sharing it with advertisers.
EU accuses TikTok of violating digital rules over ads
Brussels, Belgium (AFP) May 15, 2025 -
The EU accused TikTok on Thursday of breaking digital rules after concluding that the Chinese-owned social media platform is not transparent enough about advertisements.
The European Commission "found that TikTok does not provide the necessary information about the content of the advertisements, the users targeted by the ads, and who paid for the advertisements", it said in a statement.
It is the first time Brussels has formally accused TikTok with breaching the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU's landmark online content law.
"In our preliminary view, TikTok is not complying with the DSA in key areas of its advertisement repository, preventing the full inspection of the risks brought about by its advertising and targeting systems," the EU's digital chief, Henna Virkkunen, said.
Under the DSA, the world's largest digital companies must establish an advertisement library that shows information about the adverts that run on their platforms.
The EU hopes that any ads library is then easily accessible to researchers and civil society to detect scam adverts and hybrid threat campaigns.
The DSA, which entered into effect last year, is part of the European Union's powerful armoury to rein in big tech, and gives the EU the power to hit companies with fines as high as six percent of their global annual revenues.
TikTok is still under investigation in the same probe launched in February 2024 amid fears it may not be doing enough to address negative impacts on young people.
A key worry is the so-called "rabbit hole" effect -- which occurs when users are fed related content based on an algorithm, in some cases leading to more dangerous content.
TikTok now has the right to examine the commission's documents and reply in writing.
- TikTok trends -
The EU launched investigations last year into claims it was used by Russia to sway the result of Romania's presidential election and over its Lite spinoff app.
The company backed down and permanently removed a feature in the Lite app in France and Spain in August after regulators warned it could be very addictive.
EU states including Belgium and France also recently raised concerns with the EU over the "SkinnyTok" trend promoting extreme thinness on TikTok.
TikTok has said it does not allow the display or promotion of dangerous behaviours related to eating habits and weight loss.
The DSA has more stringent rules for the biggest platforms, and demands tech giants do more to counter the spread of illegal and harmful content as well as disinformation.
The EU last year accused X, owned by US tech billionaire Elon Musk, of breaching the DSA over its blue checkmarks for certified accounts.
And as part of a wide-ranging probe, the EU is looking into the spread of illegal content and the effectiveness of the platform's efforts to combat disinformation.
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