Alibaba Raises Buyback To US$25bn, Boosting Stock

Alibaba, the world's biggest e-commerce company, increased a share buyback to US$25 billion from US$15 billion on Tuesday, boosting a stock price that has been dented by regulatory tightening in the mainland’s tech sector.

The increase is a “sign of confidence in the company’s continued growth,” Alibaba said. The company added that it had paid out US$9.2 billion so far in buybacks.

Alibaba’s US-traded shares have fallen 56 percent, wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars of stock market value, since Beijing launched anti-monopoly and data-security crackdowns in 2019. Alibaba has been fined and a planned stock market debut by Ant Group, an online finance company spun off from Alibaba, was postponed.

Alibaba's Hong Kong-traded shares soared 11.2 percent on Tuesday and were the biggest index point contributor to the Hang Seng’s 3.15 percent surge.

Beijing has previously expressed concern that private sector tech giants such as Alibaba and Tencent are too independent and might use their market dominance to suppress competition and hurt economic growth.

Alibaba earlier reported that profit for the final quarter of 2021 fell 74 percent from a year earlier to 20.4 billion yuan. Revenue rose 10 percent to 242.6 billion yuan. (AP)