Alibaba to withdraw from traditional physical retail business

Recently, Alibaba Group released its financial report for the third quarter of fiscal year 2024 ending on Dec 31, 2023. During the earnings call, Alibaba responded positively to rumors of selling its traditional brick-and-mortar retail business-considering withdrawal slowly.

Tsai Chongxin, chairman of the board of directors of Alibaba Group, responded that in the nine months since fiscal year 2024, Alibaba has completed the withdrawal of US$1.7 billion in non-core assets, and at the same time established a dedicated team to execute the withdrawal of some listed company stocks.

Tsai Chongxin said that there are still some traditional physical retail businesses on the balance sheet. "These are not our core focus. If we can complete the withdrawal, it is very reasonable." However, he also said that considering the current market conditions, iIt takes time to realize withdrawal slowly.

It was previously reported that Alibaba Group is seeking to sell its RT-Mart, Intime and other assets in order to divest non-core departments that are losing money, shift the company's development focus to the "core profitable part" of e-commerce, optimize resource allocation and focus on core businesses.

It is reported that in the third financial quarter announced this time, "all other" including Sun Art Retail, Freshshippo, Intime and other businesses achieved revenue of 47.023 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 7%, and the net loss of this part was 3.172 billion yuan, expanding by 87% on yearly basis. The financial report explained that the decline in Sun Art's retail revenue was mainly due to the reduction in the scale of the supply chain business and the decrease in customer unit prices.