Alibaba Group’s profit surges 69% on low costs, online shopping in pandemic

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s profit surged 69%, as China’s e-commerce leader kept a lid on costs and shoppers continued to spend online while the pandemic raged.

Its shares climbed more than 6% in pre-market New York trading. The online retailer reported net income of 46.8 billion yuan ($6.8 billion), easily surpassing the roughly 35 billion yuan average estimate. Revenue rose 2.1% to 247.76 billion yuan in the December quarter, just ahead of projections.

The bottom-line gains partly reflect deep cost cuts at a company that once spent aggressively to grow its international and online services businesses. The company is now focused on buoying profits while navigating increasingly tough competition from arch-rival JD.com Inc. as well as up-and-comers such as PDD Holdings Inc.