Alibaba Group (BABA) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Alibaba Group (BABA -2.20%)
Q3 2024 Earnings Call
Nov 15, 2024, 7:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Alibaba Group’s September quarter 2024 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management’s prepared remarks, there will be a Q&A session.

I would now like to turn the call over to Lydia Liu, head of investor relations of Alibaba Group. Please go ahead.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Alibaba Group’s September quarter 2024 results conference call. With us are Joe Tsai, chairman; Eddie Wu, chief executive officer; Toby Xu, chief financial officer. We have also invited Jiang Fan, co-chairman and CEO of Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, to join the call. This call is also being webcast from the IR section of our corporate website.

A replay of the call will be available on our website later today. Now, let me quickly cover the safe harbor. As usual, we would like to remind everyone that today’s discussions may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to the safe harbor statements that appear in our press release and investor presentation provided today.

Please note that certain financial measures that we use on this call are expressed on a non-GAAP basis. Our GAAP results and reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures can be found in our earnings press release. Unless otherwise stated, growth rate of all stated metrics mentioned during this call refers to year-over-year growth versus the same quarter last year. With that, I will now turn to Eddie.

Eddie Wu — Chief Executive Officer

Greetings, and welcome to our quarterly earnings call. This quarter, our core business segments maintained steady growth guided by our user first AI-driven strategy. Purchase frequency continued to drive GMV growth on our platform with interoperability initiatives adding new growth impetus. Recently, monthly active consumers on Taobao and Tmall reached a new all-time high.

Alibaba International Digital Commerce revenue growth remained strong. Cloud revenue, excluding Alibaba consolidated subsidiaries, grew steadily with AI products contributing an increasing share. Across segments, we progressively enhanced operational efficiency and monetization capabilities, and further improved the performance of loss-making businesses. For Taobao and Tmall group, we stick to our user first strategy.

During this quarter, purchase frequency continued to drive GMV growth with continued improvement in overall user experience. Our loyal customers, represented by 88 VIP members, continued to increase, reaching 46 million at quarter-end. In terms of monetization progress, we implemented an industry standard 0.6% software service fee this quarter while providing certain rebates to SME merchants. Merchant adoption of Alibaba’s Quanzhantui marketing tool continued to rise, contributing to margin revenue growth.

We concluded a successful Double 11 Global Shopping Festival, during which Taobao and Tmall achieved robust growth in GMV with a number of monthly active consumers back to growth and achieving a record high. We believe that the growth of purchasers will continue, and user growth and retention will subsequently bring more consumption upside in the future. We’re optimistic about the government’s macro stimulus policies and are confident in their positive long-term economic impact. While e-commerce competition remains intense, we’ll continue to invest in core user groups and product categories, increased investment in new users, and improve user retention.

Implementation of these initiatives will drive sustainable growth of our platform. In our cloud segment, we continue to optimize revenue mix while advancing our integrated cloud plus AI development strategy. Alibaba Cloud revenue, excluding Alibaba consolidated subsidiaries, grew 7% this quarter, a steady improvement from the June quarter. The revenue growth was driven by double-digit public cloud growth, and in particular, revenue from AI-related products maintained triple-digit growth for the fifth consecutive quarter, increasing its share in public cloud revenue.

During this quarter, Alibaba Cloud held the 16th Apsara Conference and launched a suite of competitive technologies and products. We believe the AI era is just beginning, and we’re just still in the early stage of AGI transformation. Looking ahead, AI’s potential extends beyond mobile screens. It’s poised to reshape the digital world and ultimately transform all industries in the physical world.

As a leading cloud service provider for AI in China, we will continue to invest in advanced technology and AI infrastructure while optimizing operational efficiency. This will enable us to deliver more reliable and cost-effective AI technologies and products across industries. We believe that as AI penetration grows, Alibaba Cloud’s cloud computing and AI-related products will become the foundational infrastructure that supports development across industries. In international e-commerce, AIDC achieved 29% revenue growth this quarter, maintaining strong growth momentum, and Jiang Fan will be sharing more detail shortly.

This quarter, Cainiao further strength synergies with other businesses in our group and significantly advanced its highly digitalized global logistics network. We’ll continue to invest in core capabilities and promote front- and back-end synergies. This quarter, we also narrowed losses in both local services and digital media entertainment, demonstrating steady and progressive improvement in operational efficiency. Despite intensifying e-commerce competition in recent months, Taobao and Tmall achieved breakthroughs and core user retention and in new user growth.

Our cloud business maintained rapid growth in AI-related products. Other businesses continued to improve their operating efficiency as planned while achieving business growth. We’ll continue investing in core businesses and improve quality of operations, and we are fully confident in the future. I will now hand over to Jiang Fan.

Jiang Fan — Chief Executive Officer, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group

Hi, everybody. Over this past quarter, AIDC’s overall revenue grew by 29% year over year, primarily driven by cross-border business in terms of our three areas of consistent focus. First, our AE Choice orders maintained strong year-over-year growth. It’s relatively high share of total orders further solidify the certainty and consistency of user experience.

Average delivery time continue to shorten. During this quarter, we focused on optimizing the mix and operational efficiency of our marketplace and consignment models, improving user experience and product selection with steady improvement in AE Choice’s unit economics. We also launched the AliExpress Direct model, leveraging merchants local inventories in overseas markets to expand product selection and optimize fulfillment experience. Second, we continue to explore the application of AI across our businesses; launched and updated multiple AI tools.

We released our AI-powered B2B search engine in November. This new product reimagines international procurement through conversational search, making global sourcing easier for SMEs while improving overall platform transaction efficiency. Third, we continue deepening our presence in key markets. Trendyol’s international business maintained strong momentum in multiple adjacent markets.

With improving product selection and user experience, we will leverage the traditional peak season in November and December to increase investments and expand user base in an effective and efficient manner in key markets while balancing and enhancing user acquisition and operating efficiency. AIDC will remain focused on enhancing operational efficiency while strategically investing in key markets to pursue our strategic goal of profitability at scale. Thank you.

Toby Xu — Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Jiang Fan. The financial performance of the past quarter further confirms that our execution of the growth strategy in our core businesses remains on track. On Taobao and Tmall business, we’ve made steady progress in our monetization strategy this quarter with accelerated CMR growth, contributing to a solid trend in our domestic e-commerce business. We implemented the software service fee based on a percentage of completed GMV starting from September 1st.

Quanzhantui, our AI-powered platformwide marketing tool, saw an increase in merchant adoption from the prior quarter. Merchants benefit through improved marketing efficiency, which we expect will lead to increased spending on our platform. We adopted a more open approach for payment and logistics services on our platforms to make shopping on our platforms more convenient to a larger base of consumers and improve merchants’ operating efficiency. We expect this will translate into user growth and more transactions in the future.

For our cloud business, momentum remained strong as revenue growth accelerated from the prior quarter to 7%. This growth is driven by the increasing demand for AI, which triggers more demand for our public cloud products. Revenue from our public cloud products grew at double digits, while AI-related product revenue achieved triple-digit year-over-year growth for the fifth consecutive quarter. This quarter, AIDC maintained its rapid growth with strong momentum from cross-border business expansion, especially through our choice business.

Both AliExpress and Trendyol continued investing to grow users in Europe and the Gulf region. Beyond e-commerce and cloud, we are improving the operating efficiency of our other businesses with the goal of sustainable business growth and returning to profitability. Some of the businesses are achieving profitability even sooner while the majority will achieve breakeven within one to two years and gradually begin to contribute profitability at scale. For the September quarter, we repurchased shares for a total of $4.1 billion, combined with the $5.8 billion repurchased during the June quarter.

We spent a total of approximately $10 billion and achieved a 4.4% net reduction in share count for the first half of the fiscal year. Even after factoring in ESOP issuance, we have been able to achieve this significant level of creation just six months into fiscal 2025, compared to a 5.1% net reduction in share count for the entire fiscal year 2024. As of September 30, 2024, we still have $22 billion in authorization for further share repurchase program. Going forward, the pace of our share buybacks will be a function of share price as our strategy is to optimize share count reduction against this cash cost of an aggressive share repurchase program.

Beyond our share purchase program, we also proactively manage dilution from our ESOP program by replacing a portion of the ESOP with long-term cash incentives starting this fiscal year. This shift allows us to limit share dilution in the future, as well as better utilizing our cash generated from domestic businesses. In August, we completed our primary listing in Hong Kong, followed by inclusion in the southbound Stock Connect in September. By September 30, 2024, net inflows into our Hong Kong listed shares reached HK$46 billion, representing approximately 515 million Hong Kong shares which is equivalent to 64 million ADSs in just 12 trading days.

This accounts for approximately 3% of our outstanding shares. We are pleased that the southbound Stock Connect has enabled the broader access and engagement for investors from Mainland China. On a consolidated basis, total consolidated revenue was RMB 236.5 billion, an increase of 5%. Consolidated adjusted EBITA decreased 5% to RMB 40.6 billion, primarily attributable to the increase in investments in our e-commerce businesses.

Excluding the effect of long-term cash incentive plan, our adjusted EBITA growth would have decreased of 4% on a like-for-like basis compared to same quarter last year. Our non-GAAP net income was 36.5 billion, a decrease of 9%. Our GAAP net income was RMB 43.5 billion, an increase of 63%, primarily attributable to the mark-to-market changes from our equity investments, decrease in investment impairment, and increased income from operations. As of September 30, 2024, we continue to maintain a strong net cash position of RMB 352.1 billion or $50.2 billion.

Free cash flow this quarter was RMB 13.7 billion, a decrease of 70% compared to RMB 45.2 billion in the same quarter last year. This was mainly attributed to our investments in Alibaba Cloud infrastructure. In addition, there’s a refund to Tmall merchants after we canceled the annual service fee and some other working capital changes related to factors including scale down of certain direct sales businesses. Given the sustained and strong demand for AI, we will continue to invest in AI infrastructure as we anticipate future demand for AI-driven cloud services.

Now, let’s look at the segment results, starting with Taobao and Tmall Group. Revenue for Taobao and Tmall was RMB 99 billion, an increase of 1%. Revenue from our China commerce retail business was RMB 93 billion, compared to RMB 92.6 billion in the same quarter last year. Customer management revenue increased by 2%, primarily due to online GMV growth, while take rate remains stable year over year.

We have made steady progress in our monetization strategy this quarter with accelerated CMR growth driven by the implementation of the software service fee on completed GMV and a wider adoption of Quanzhantui. Direct sales and other revenue decreased by 5% to RMB 22.6 billion, primarily attributable to the decrease in sales of appliances. China commerce wholesale business revenue increased 18% to RMB 6 billion, primarily due to the increase in revenue from value-added services provided to paying members. Taobao and Tmall Group adjusted EBITA decreased by 5% to RMB 44.6 billion, primarily due to the increase in investment in user experience partly offset by the increase in revenue from customer management service.

Revenue from Cloud Intelligence Group was RMB 29.6 billion in this quarter, an increase of 7%. Overall revenue, excluding Alibaba consolidated subsidiaries, increased by 7%, mainly driven by double-digit public cloud revenue growth, including AI-related products. AI-related product revenue grew at triple digits year over year for the fifth consecutive quarter. Cloud adjusted EBITA increased by 89% to RMB 2.7 billion, while our adjusted EBITA margin increased four percentage points to 9% year over year, primarily due to a shift in product mix toward high-margin public cloud products, including AI-related products and improving operating efficiency, partly offset by the increasing investments in customer growth and technology.

We will continue to invest in anticipation of customer growth and in technology, particularly in AI-related cloud infrastructure to capture the increasing trend of cloud adoption for AI and maintain our market leadership. Revenue from AIDC grew 29% this quarter. The strong performance continued to be driven by growth of cross-border businesses, in particular, AliExpress Choice business. Revenue from international commerce retail business increased by 35% to RMB 25.6 billion, primarily driven by the increase in revenue contributed by AliExpress Choice and Trendyol.

Revenue from our international commerce wholesale business increased by 9% to RMB 6.1 billion, primarily due to the increase in revenue generated by cross-border-related value-added services. AIDC’s adjusted EBITA was a loss of RMB 2.9 billion, compared to a loss of RMB 384 million in the same quarter last year, primarily due to the increase in investments in AliExpress and Trendyol’s cross-border businesses, partly offset by Lazada’s significant reduction in operating loss from improvements in its monetization and operating efficiency. As Jiang Fan mentioned, going forward, AIDC will continue to invest in key growth markets we have identified for strategic expansion while enhancing operational efficiency in markets we see lying outside to profitability. Revenue from Cainiao grew 8% to RMB 24.6 billion, primarily driven by the increase in revenue from cross-border fulfillment solutions.

We will continue to invest in Cainiao’s core capabilities to ensure it delivers unique value to our e-commerce businesses. To this end, Cainiao will prioritize in investing in building its core capabilities to ensure the synergies with our e-commerce businesses. Cainiao adjusted EBITA decreased by 94% to RMB 55 million, compared to RMB 906 million in the same quarter last year, primarily due to the increased investment in cross-border fulfillment solutions. Revenue from local service group grew by 14%, driven by the order growth of both AMAP and Ele.me, as well as revenue growth from marketing services, while losses narrowed significantly, primarily driven by improving operating efficiency and increasing in scale.

Revenue of Digital Media and Entertainment Group was RMB 5.7 billion, while losses narrowed. Youku progressively reduced its operating loss due to increased advertising revenue, as well as improved content investment efficiency. Revenue from all other segments increased by 9%, mainly due to the increase in revenue from retail businesses, including Freshippo and Alibaba Health, while adjusted EBITA was a loss of RMB 1.6 billion. In closing, we are making solid progress in strengthening the competitiveness of our core businesses of domestic e-commerce in cloud computing, both of which have proven to show sustainable profitability.

We have the confidence to invest in our AIDC business because we see high-growth potential. And we continue to find ways to make our loss-making segments more efficient, put them on a clear path to profitability. Thank you. That’s the end of our prepared remarks.

We can open up for Q&A.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Hi, everyone. For today’s call, you are welcome to ask questions in Chinese or English. A third-party translator will provide consecutive interpretation for the Q&A session. Please note that the translation is for convenience purposes only.

In the case of any discrepancy, our management statement in their original language will prevail. If you are unable to hear the Chinese translation, bilingual transcripts of this call will be available on our website within one week after the meeting. [Foreign language] Operator, please start Q&A session. Thank you.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Your first question today comes from Alicia Yap at Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Alicia Yap — Analyst

Thank you. Good evening, management. Thanks for taking my questions. My question is related to this year’s Singles’ Day promotions and the macro outlook.

So, I think most people would agree Singles’ Day performance this year is OK and somewhat maybe better than expected. It seems like this year, most of the discount voucher offer to consumer come from platforms rather than share between the platforms and merchants. So, just wondering if management can provide some feedback from merchants and brands regarding their satisfaction on the Singles’ Day promotion? And also, how should we think about the financial impact near term as related to the higher coupon discount together with higher return rate this year, offsetting potential longer-term positive impact, if any, from a more vibrant and sustainable operation environment for merchants that might translate to higher ad budget spend on the ad tools that will benefit longer-term CMR trend. And then if there’s any preliminary view from the management that can share how you think about the macro outlook and overall improvement in the consumption trend as we head into 2025.

Thank you.

Eddie Wu — Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] Thank you. This is Eddie, and I’ll be happy to take that question. In terms of the way we approached Double 11 this year for Taobao and Tmall, we got off to an early start getting going with the campaign back in October. So, the campaign ran over a longer cycle.

Of course, other platforms also got off to an earlier start. Overall, we achieved a relatively robust GMV growth during the campaign period. I would say that the results that merchants achieved based on what we discussed with them going into the campaign in terms of their expectations, and then the feedback we got from them after the campaign is that results exceeded their expectations. I would say that overall, results exceeded our expectations.

As to your question on coupons, I think the setup is basically similar across all of the different platforms. You have two different categories of coupons, platform coupons on the one hand and category coupons on the other. So, when it comes to platform coupons on Taobao and Tmall, these are basically coupons that we the platform are issuing to our 88 VIP members. And when it comes to the category coupons, these are jointly issued by the platform and the merchants.

[Foreign language] And I’d just like to add to that last point, namely that when we as a platform provide those platform coupons to our members, that has a very positive impact in the longer term for brands in terms of helping them to grow their business. It shapes positive future expectations. And with that level of confidence that the business will be growing, we can expect them to spend more on advertising and marketing, thereby contributing to CMR revenue growth. [Foreign language] And then turning to your third question on the macro situation.

Indeed, from the end of September onwards, various different monetary and fiscal stimulus measures have been announced at the national level and in many different localities. Also trade-in programs are being run for upgrading electronic goods as well as subsidies for home appliance and automobile purchases. So, these programs definitely are stimulating growth in sales in the relevant categories. And I think these stimulus measures are really just getting started and, over time, will have a positive impact on driving consumption overall.

I think these policies in particular, will also help reduce merchants’ destocking cycles and have a medium- to long-term effect in terms of driving the consumption of branded goods.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Next question, operator.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Ronald Keung from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Ronald Keung — Analyst

[Foreign language] Thank you for taking my question, management. My question has to do with take rate. In your announcement for the September quarter, you indicated that take rate has stabilized. I’m wondering if you could talk about the progress of the rollout and adoption of Quanzhantui.

And also what this means? Does it mean that the gap between CMR growth and take rate has now disappeared?

Toby Xu — Chief Financial Officer

[Foreign language] Thank you. This is Toby. I’ll take that question. Indeed, as you can see in the results from this quarter, our take rate is now relatively stable.

I think there are several factors that have created that result working in tandem. These include progress on monetization, including the 0.6% software service fee that we’ve now started charging. Of course, we’ve only been doing that for one month. As well as the deepening penetration of Quanzhantui.

So, these two factors are both positive for take rate. But at the same time, we also have new business models that are still in the growth stage with relatively low monetization, and it’s going to take time to continue to grow those products and increase the monetization rate. So, the result you’re seeing this quarter in terms of a relatively stable take rate is the result of those factors in tandem. There’s an offset at work there.

In the longer term, we’ll continue to charge that 0.6% software service fee. We’ll, of course, continue to deepen the penetration and adoption of Quanzhantui. And at the same time, we’ll continue to work on growing those products that still have relatively low monetization. So, you can expect to see that kind of offsetting effect going forward.

[Foreign language] Looking into the future as regards take rate, I think it’s fair to say that as compared against the market average, there’s still significant potential headroom for us to increase the take rate. But at the same time, we’re obviously going to be looking very closely at the merchants, ensuring the health of merchant operations is critical to us. So, we will be taking a balanced approach in making those considerations.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Next question, please.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Thomas Chong with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thomas Chong — Analyst

Hi, good evening. Thanks, management, for taking my questions. My question is also on TTG side. Can management comment about our investment strategies in coming quarters? And how should we think about the trend for TTG EBITA.

With that, on the one hand, we are having a service fee, Quanzhantui, but we also investment in the user experience. So, I just want to see how these two factors need to TTG EBITA outlook? And my second question is also on the TTG side. I think it’s more about the synergies we’re raising payment. Can management share about the potential with raising payment in growing our user base, as well as the incremental GMV that we ambition in the coming years? Thank you.

Eddie Wu — Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] Thank you. Well, for Taobao and Tmall, at present, our strategy is to be investing in strengthening our abilities, our competences, investing in the user experience and also investing on the merchant side. That involves several different kinds of investments: investing in developing more extensive, more diversified supply; investing in developing price competitive supply; and also investing in new product and promising new brands. In terms of investing in user experience, that includes making investments in improving after-sales service, also improving the logistics experience, as well as investing in improving the front-end user interface.

Additionally, we’re also investing in technology. There’s very rapid growth in our AI-related products uptake, so investing not only in those products, but also in the computing power that’s needed to run these AI products. So, these are long-term investments that we’re making to enhance user experience and to enhance supply on the merchant side. So, that ties in nicely to your second question about interoperability with WeChat Pay and the ability that gives us to develop new users.

I would say we have quite high expectations for the ability that gives us to acquire new users. And again, we’re investing for the medium to long term in driving that user growth and retention. So, this is a large investment direction for us. So, overall, I would say that Taobao and Tmall is currently very much in the investment stage.

We’re making investments. Of course, we’re paying a lot of attention to ensuring the efficiency of those investments, and we’re also working on increasing CMR as well in order to be able to better make those investments. So, to answer your original question, I think given that, you can expect to see EBITA fluctuate over the next few quarters to come because, overall, we are in an investment phase. [Foreign language] In terms of the cooperation that we’ve engaged in to allow for interoperability with WeChat being accepted on Taobao and Tmall, we see a very large potential there for user growth going forward.

In particular, we expect to see a large noticeable increase in monthly active consumers, MACs, but it will take time to fully realize this potential. And this is again complementary with the measures we’re taking to drive user growth that I just shared with you. But the goal is to get them on the platform and to get them to stay on the platform over time, continue to drive incremental GMV growth.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Next question, please.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Alex Yao at JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Alex Yao — Analyst

[Foreign language] So, Eddie spent quite some time sharing with us his thinking around the opportunity and the strategy on the consumer side. I just like shift the conversation, if I may, to the supply chain side. And we note that there’s been a relatively sharp decline in the growth rate of live streaming e-commerce recently. I’m wondering what that means for your strategy.

Will you be focusing more aggressively on brands? And conversely, what opportunities do you see, what strategies will we be deploying around white-label goods and agricultural produce?

Eddie Wu — Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] Thanks. Well, I think if you’re going to talk about live stream and e-commerce, you really need to drill down and look at different platforms, different platforms have different strategies for live streaming e-commerce, different levels of penetration of live streaming. In fact, if you look at Taobao and Tmall, there’s been a very strong increase in live streaming on our platforms, especially during the Double 11 period. So, again, I think different platforms have different penetration levels of live streaming e-commerce at different stages of development in this regard.

This year, we’ve seen a marriage, if you like, of high-quality supply with live streaming e-commerce. You could call it quality stream, if you like. On Taobao and Tmall, we have very strong brands with flagship brands stores, and they’ve created excellent synergy with live streaming to tremendous excellent effect during Double 11. So, you asked about investing in the context of brand merchants.

I mean, of course, everyone invests in order to see growth. And this year, in general, I think you see growth rates across different e-commerce platforms converging. And if anything, that really plays to our advantage at Taobao and Tmall because the brands need to be looking at which platform can truly bring them more sales rather than simply just displaying their products. [Foreign language] As for your question about white-label goods and agricultural produce, this is a topic that we’re also discussing internally and sometimes with differing views.

But each platform has its own characteristics. And as a platform, you do need to focus on your core group of consumers and their consumption preferences and needs. So, for us, when it comes to our 88 VIP members, these are people whose preference is for branded goods, but they do also have demand for white label as well. With the introduction of new payment options and the acquisition of new users following that, that may also result in new demand for white goods.

So, I do think you need to look at your users’ preferences, their preferences in different categories and ensure that you can provide the appropriate supply for those categories to meet those different preferences as a platform. It needs to be somewhat customized.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Next question, please.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Kenneth Fong at UBS. Please go ahead.

Kenneth Fong — Analyst

[Foreign language] Thanks for taking my question, management. My question is on the cloud side. We note in the results that our revenue growth is accelerating, and you stated that you expect to achieve double-digit growth, and profitability is increasing as well. I’m wondering what your view is of future profitability of cloud, especially given the recent price decreases in cloud.

Eddie Wu — Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] Thank you. Well, cloud is a business where technology advantage matters, and scale effect also matters. And we have both of those things, which is why as we’ve been able to grow the volume, we’ve been improving profitability as well. We do take a long-term view when it comes to looking at developing profitability in this sector, both in terms of software, pricing, and compute pricing.

I think you’re referring to the recent reduction in token price for Q1 API. And that’s because we prioritized growing the user base there. But by lowering the API token price, we will attract lots of new users to come and use the models to deploy their applications on our cloud, and that will result in an increase in their use of our compute power, storage, database and other products. So, you could really think of the reduction in token price as an investment in user acquisition and user growth because we have a full technology stack.

And as long as people come to the platform, they will inevitably end up making use of multiple different cloud products.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Next question, please.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Jialong Shi from Nomura. Please go ahead.

Jialong Shi — Analyst

[Foreign language] Thanks, management, for taking my questions. I have a few questions. My first has to do with take rate. I noted that, earlier in the call, management indicated that you see that there is still significant room to increase take rate, but at the same time, you’ll be keeping a close eye on merchants, the cost to merchants, the burden for merchants and operating on the platform.

Recently, we’ve seen competitors reduce their rates, reduce the operating burden for merchants on their platform. Do you think that will prove attractive to merchants? And is there any risk of Alibaba losing merchants as a result of that? Secondly, regarding the trade-in subsidy programs that have been launched I’m wondering how big an impact they’re having? How large a boost are you seeing in GMV in the relevant categories like electronics, consumer electronics and home appliances. And then building on that, would it be fair to say that these kinds of subsidy programs that started in September are just the beginning of more subsidies to come down the road. If so, do you — how large were those future subsidy programs be, what categories will be applied to? And how big a difference do you think they’ll make?

Toby Xu — Chief Financial Officer

[Foreign language] Thanks. This is Toby. I’ll take the first question, and Eddie will take the second one. For Taobao and Tmall, we have consistently attached tremendous importance to the rights and interests of merchants.

I think not only in terms of take rate, but in terms of our overall level of merchant friendliness, we are certainly the best of all the different platforms that are out there. So, certainly, yes, there is room to increase take rate, but we need to take a balanced approach, balancing platform health, balancing the health of merchant operations, and balancing the take rate. Also, we’ve given a lot of relief and concessions to small- and medium-sized merchants, including giving them rebates following our rollout of the software usage fee. We’ve canceled the annual fee for Tmall merchants, the optimized policies, including return-only policies for merchants.

So, these are all different ways in which we try really hard to safeguard the rights of merchants and the merchant. [Foreign language] At the same time, as we’ve done in the past, going forward, we will continue to invest in initiatives such as membership program benefits, as well as price competitive products and technologies with the aim of enhancing user experience. And again, all of that investment ultimately will translate into more transactions on the platform to the benefit of our merchants.

Eddie Wu — Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] On your other question about the impact of these trade-in subsidies over the past few months, yes, definitely, the contribution has been large. And since these trade-in subsidy policies were launched back in September, we’ve seen a significant growth acceleration in those categories. As for other categories, different regions have different policies. So, part from the large appliances, some may also offer trade-in subsidies for small appliances or even for home decoration, home furnishing, and other digital categories.

So, it does depend on the region and the different policies. But in these categories, you are seeing a significant impact.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Next question, please.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Gary Yu at Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Yuko Oku — Analyst

[Foreign language] Thanks, management, for taking my questions. I have a couple of questions. The first is a follow-up on Taobao and Tmall, where you started charging the 0.6% software service fee from September onwards. So, next quarter, that will be making a contribution for the full quarter for the first time.

So, since you said that take rate is stable, now, I’m wondering if that would mean that in the next quarter, CMR could actually grow faster than GMV is growing. In other words, could take rate perhaps not just be stable, but actually be growing in the next quarter? Second question has to do with capex. And I guess a lot of the capex spending is around cloud, especially around supporting AI needs. How do you think about the ROI of that capex?

Toby Xu — Chief Financial Officer

[Foreign language] Thanks. This is Toby. I’ll take the first question and then hand over to Eddie for the second. I think I already spoke to this earlier when I flagged the two factors that are positive for take rate, namely the 0.6% software service fee and further penetration of the Quanzhantui marketing tool.

But an offset to that, we have these new models that we’re investing in that are growing fast, but with low monetization. So, those new models with low monetization, if you like, are diluting or offsetting the higher take rate from the first two factors. So, Taobao and Tmall, we’re looking at this in the round in overall terms and also looking at merchants, ensuring that we’re providing them with a good operating environment with a stable business environment and ensuring that overall, everything is healthy. But there is an offsetting and counterbalancing effect that we are looking at in the route.

Eddie Wu — Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] Yeah. You’re right. A lot of the capex investments that we’re making are in cloud, especially around AI infrastructure, and that’s a function of our knowledge, our understanding of the short-term demand, as well as our judgment of the long-term demand. In terms of that short-term demand, there’s ongoing explosive growth in demand for AI for the compute power that drives AI for the API services to access the models.

And it’s not even possible now to fully and the fact that we meet all of that demand. So, that’s why we’re making aggressive investments for the short term. But in the longer term, we view this opportunity around Gen AI as a historic opportunity, it’s the kind of opportunity that probably comes along only once every 20 years, say, in terms of the ability to leapfrog technologically. And that’s why we think there’s a high level of certainty around that demand going forward for inferencing, especially if you look at OpenAI’s newest model, o1, with its COT, chain of thought, that implies exponential growth in demand for inferencing.

So, that explains why we’re investing aggressively in AI-related infrastructure for the short term and in the long term because we’re very optimistic about that demand.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Next question, please.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Jiong Shao at Barclays. Please go ahead.

Jiong Shao — Analyst

Thank you very much for taking my question, My question is around shareholder return. I mean, it’s great you guys bought back $10 billion in the last six months. Firstly, I was just wondering, do you differentiate between ADR and your Hong Kong Ticker 9988 when you buy back shares? And my question is around the PBOC reason to be launched, some swap programs to land companies to buy back their shares. But now you are in the southbound Stock Connect.

I was wondering, does that program sort of available to you? Thank you.

Toby Xu — Chief Financial Officer

[Foreign language] OK. Thank you for your question. This is Toby. I’ll take on this question.

Firstly, actually, if you look at the distribution of the liquidity of our shares on the U.S. line, Hong Kong line, currently, U.S. lines still the majority. So, currently, the buyback — we were executing buyback on both lines.

But very recently, our execution of the buyback is mainly on the U.S. line. So, that’s to answer your first question. And the second question, we are exploring various financing opportunities to fund our buyback.

The one you just mentioned, actually, we haven’t been actually able to leverage that. But of course, apparently, we can further explore such opportunity. What we intend currently is more like for the Asia buyback. However, we do explore other ways.

If you reflect back in May, we raised NCB of like 5 billion, and we use the whole amount in June quarter, buying back $5.8 billion of our shares. So, going forward, we will continue to explore various ways on the financing and also do the buyback basically to create more value to our shareholders. [Foreign language] OK. And just to add on one point.

Actually, we do have a very rich RMB cash onshore. So, if the lending is RMB, actually, we are CNY, if you like. We are actually not that — we have abundant cash CNY onshore. So, to us, I think probably it’s more attractive if some of the lending is like in CNH or U.S.

dollar.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Due to time limit, we will now take the last question.

Operator

Thank you. Your last question comes from James Lee at Mizuho Securities. Please go ahead.

James Lee — Analyst

Great, thanks for taking my question. I guess two follow-up questions on AI. First on Cloud. And maybe can you double click on the demand for AI adoption.

Is the AI revenue mostly coming from model training or inferencing? Because in the U.S. — and also in addition, in the U.S., people are talking about AI agents and automation of workflow, and how do you see that developing in China over time? Thanks.

Eddie Wu — Chief Executive Officer

[Foreign language] Right. Well, if you look at the demand that’s being created for cloud from Gen AI, initially, a lot of that demand is for the training of models. But then over time, more and more computing power is needed to drive the inferencing. And looking into the future, we could expect to see there just being a smaller number of companies that are actually doing model training, especially for large foundational models.

You can also expect to see a lot of training being done for different verticals like, for example, autonomous vehicles, but also other specialized industries. So, at the present time, there’s very strong growth in demand to support both model training and inferencing. But in the longer term, in the future, we think that inferencing will account for the larger share of growth in demand. [Foreign language] And as you mentioned, AI is being applied in all kinds of different industries, different companies developing their own AI agents.

Part of that is indeed about automating workflows, including retraining models. And I think these things are happening in a very positive way across a lot of different industries. And we see a lot of examples of this all around us, including internally within Alibaba. So, I think these technologies are in a similar process of development here as well as in the United States.

And a lot of the compute that used to be done on CPUs is being rearchitected to run on GPU. So, it’s a major trend. The foundation of all this really is the GPU, which is driving the massive adoption of AI models. And as you mentioned, AI is being applied in different industries developing their different AI agents.

I think this is a major trend.

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, everyone, for joining. We will see you next quarter.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Lydia Liu — Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Eddie Wu — Chief Executive Officer

Jiang Fan — Chief Executive Officer, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group

Toby Xu — Chief Financial Officer

Alicia Yap — Analyst

Ronald Keung — Analyst

Thomas Chong — Analyst

Alex Yao — Analyst

Kenneth Fong — Analyst

Jialong Shi — Analyst

Yuko Oku — Analyst

Jiong Shao — Analyst

James Lee — Analyst

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