(Yicai Global) Feb. 24 -- Shares of Alibaba Group Holding declined despite the Chinese online retailer’s profit more than doubling in the December quarter.

Alibaba [HKG: 9988] closed 5.4 percent lower at HKD90.05 (USD11.47) a share in Hong Kong today, while the Hang Seng Index came off 1.7 percent. The firm’s New York-listed stock [NYSE: BABA] was down 2.5 percent at USD91.78 in pre-market trading as of 4.10 a.m. local time, after having slipped 0.7 percent yesterday.

Net profit surged 138 percent from a year ago to CNY45.7 billion (USD6.6 billion) in the three months ended Dec. 31, mainly thanks to a CNY22.4 million (USD3.2 million) drop in impairment of goodwill in relation to the digital media and entertainment segment, Hangzhou-based Alibaba said in an earnings report released yesterday.

Revenue rose 2 percent to CNY247.7 billion (USD35.9 billion), beating market expectations for CNY235.2 billion.

“We delivered a solid quarter despite softer demand, supply chain and logistics disruptions due to impact of changes in Covid-19 measures,” said Daniel Zhang, chairman and chief executive officer of Alibaba. “Looking ahead, we expect continued recovery in consumer sentiment and economic activity,” he added.

Alibaba’s income from e-commerce in China, including Taobao, Tmall, Hema Fresh, and Alibaba Health, and wholesales businesses such as 1688.Com, accounted for CNY170 billion in the quarter, down 1 percent from the same period a year earlier. The decline was mainly due to poor consumer demand, competition, and a surge in Covid-19 cases that resulted in supply chain and logistics disruptions in December.

Meanwhile, overseas revenues from the likes of Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol, and Daraz rose 18 percent to CNY19.5 billion, driven by the robust order growth at Trendyol. Local consumer services rose 6 percent to CNY13.2 billion due to improving business efficiency at Ele.me.

Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Alibaba, saw revenue jump 27 percent to CNY16.6 billion. Income from Alibaba Cloud and DingTalk rose 3 percent to CNY20.2 billion, mainly driven by healthy public cloud growth, while that from the digital media and entertainment business fell 6 percent to CNY7.6 billion, despite an uptick in average daily paying subscribers at video platform Youku.

Alibaba also repurchased 45.4 million American depository shares for about USD3.3 billion in the period under the company’s share repurchase program.

Editor: Futura Costaglione