June quarter preview: more resilient earnings

Research evidence excerpt

June quarter preview: more resilient earnings

Global Markets Research

Alibaba Group Holding BABA.N BABA US 8 July 2026

EQUITY: INTERNET & NEW MEDIA

RatingJune quarter preview: more resilient earnings Remains Buy

Target price USD 178.00 RemainsRobust AI cloud, weak e-commerce; maintain Buy

Closing price USD 98.14 7 July 2026Stronger cloud offset weaker ecommerce business

As noted in our 24Junereport, we expect BABA’s June quarter results to be a mixed bag –

Implied upside +81.4%the company is likely to report weak China ecommerce CMR (customer management revenue),

down 8% y-y or up slightly by 1% y-y on a like-for-like basis. However, its China Cloud revenue Market Cap (USD mn) 235,613.4

likely grew 45% y-y, by our estimate, much higher than the Street expectation of 37.5%. We ADT (USD mn) 1,434.7

estimate that the ARR (annualized recurring revenue) from its MaaS (Model-as-a-Service)

likely surpassed the guidance of CNY10bn, reaching CNY12bn as of the end of the June

quarter. We believe BABA’s cloud revenue will accelerate further over the next few quarters, Relative performance chart

while margins for AliCloud should improve further from the current level of 11-12%, driven by

price hikes taken earlier this year and the increased revenue share for BABA’s higher-margin

MaaS business. We think BABA’s strength in China’s AI cloud industry lies in its all-stack

capability with strong position in all the critical fields of the AI value chain, spanning AI chips (T-

head), IT infrastructure (operating the largest public cloud platform), LLM platform (Bailian) and,

importantly, the advanced proprietary Qwen foundation model. Please see Figs 1-3 for our

detailed forecasts for BABA’s June quarter results.

Resilient earnings despite macro headwinds; maintain Buy