Summary of Key Takeaways from China Internet Tour Industry Overview - **Industry**: China Internet - **Key Focus Areas**: AI, Cloud, Macro Environment, Competition, Regulation Core Insights 1. **Ecommerce Growth**: Soft consumption sentiment has negatively impacted ecommerce growth in the second half of Q4 2025, with expectations of continued muted macro conditions into 2026 [1][14] 2. **Regulatory Impact**: Tightening regulations and the implementation of ecommerce VAT are expected to affect the profitability of smaller merchants, which will, in turn, weigh on ecommerce platform monetization and margins [1][15] 3. **AI Cloud Demand**: Demand for AI cloud services remains robust, although supply constraints may gradually ease due to advancements in domestic chip production and selective approvals of high-end foreign chips [1][14] 4. **Competitive Landscape**: The competition in food delivery, quick commerce, and AI chatbots is intense, with increased promotional spending likely to further pressure profitability and margins [1][14] 5. **International Expansion**: Companies are increasingly focusing on overseas markets for robotaxi services, AI applications, and IDC buildout, moving beyond previous focuses on gaming and cross-border commerce [1] Company-Specific Highlights Alibaba (BABA) 1. **GMV Growth Pressure**: Macro conditions and a high base have pressured GMV growth, alongside a lapse of 0.6% fee/QZT benefit [2] 2. **Strategic Investments**: Management reiterated commitment to strategic investments in food delivery and quick commerce, aiming to increase volume and GMV market share in 2026 [2] 3. **Cloud Revenue Growth**: Strong demand for cloud infrastructure is expected to sustain high growth levels with stable margins [2] 4. **AI Integration**: Progress in user penetration of Qwen-Max-3 and future integration with Taobao and other Alibaba ecosystem components were highlighted [2] JD.com (JD) 1. **Macro Softness**: Similar to Alibaba, JD management noted macro softness and a high base affecting trade-in programs, with expectations of recovery in 2026 [3] 2. **Food Delivery Investment**: Continued investment in food delivery is seen as crucial for user growth and cross-selling synergies [3] 3. **General Merchandise Demand**: Despite macro challenges, demand for general merchandise remains solid, with growth momentum expected to continue into 2026 [3] Baidu 1. **AI and Cloud Demand**: Management emphasized strong demand for AI and cloud services, with AI-related revenues accounting for 40% of total core revenues in Q3 2025 [7] 2. **Spin-off Plans**: Commitment to improving disclosure of AI-related metrics and enhancing shareholder returns through the proposed spin-off of Kunlunxin was reiterated [7] Didi 1. **Volume Growth**: Management expects to maintain over 8% volume growth in China for 2026 despite macro headwinds [8] 2. **International Expansion**: Didi is committed to becoming a sustainable second player in Brazil, with significant investments in food delivery [8] Trip.com (TCOM) 1. **Travel Booking Performance**: Travel booking volume remained decent during New Year 2026, with expectations for hotel ADR stabilization [9] Full Truck Alliance (YMM) 1. **Order Volume Growth**: Anticipated slowdown in order volume growth to 12% in Q4 2025, with recovery expected in 2026 [10] Kanzhun 1. **Recruitment Recovery**: Continued recovery in recruitment sentiment, particularly in sectors like internet and healthcare, with growth momentum expected to sustain into 2026 [12] Bilibili (BILI) 1. **Ad Performance**: Advertising performance is on track, with expectations for decent momentum into 2026 driven by performance ads [13] Additional Insights 1. **Ecommerce VAT Impact**: JD.com is expected to be least affected by ecommerce VAT due to its large proportion of sales from 1P and large brands, while PDD and Kuaishou may face greater challenges [15] 2. **Investment Commitments**: Both Alibaba and JD are committed to high levels of investment spending, which may pressure profitability in 2026 [15] 3. **AI Competition**: The competition in AI infrastructure and models is intensifying, with Baidu's neutral position and Kunlun's compatibility with CUDA seen as advantages [14][15] Conclusion - The China internet sector is facing challenges from macroeconomic conditions and regulatory changes, but there are opportunities in AI and cloud services. Companies are focusing on strategic investments and international expansion to navigate these challenges and drive growth into 2026 [14]

Regulatory Changes - China has introduced new regulations to curb aggressive competition in e-commerce, prohibiting major platforms like Alibaba from coercing merchants into promotions or deep discounts [1] - The regulations will take effect in February and follow warnings to Alibaba, JD.com, and Meituan regarding disruptive pricing tactics [1] Impact on Companies - Shares of Alibaba and JD.com declined as investors assessed the implications of increased regulatory oversight [2] - Meituan reported its first loss in nearly three years, attributing it to "irrational competition" and ongoing price wars with Alibaba and JD.com amid weak consumer demand [3] Strategic Adjustments - Alibaba has restructured its delivery and retail strategy by phasing out its food-delivery brand Ele.me, integrating it into its instant-retail strategy [4][5] - The company is enhancing its logistics network and unifying various platforms under a coordinated delivery workforce, while launching a unified membership program to increase customer loyalty [6]

Core Viewpoint - Alibaba and Tencent are two major Chinese tech companies with distinct business models and growth trajectories, facing challenges from regulatory scrutiny and market competition, making their long-term investment reliability a subject of debate [1][2]. Alibaba - Alibaba's revenue primarily comes from its two main marketplaces, Taobao and Tmall, with a smaller portion from its cloud infrastructure business, which has lower margins [4]. - Over the past five years, Alibaba's stock has declined by nearly 40%, attributed to cooling economic growth, antitrust scrutiny, and trade tensions [2]. - Analysts project Alibaba's revenue and earnings per share (EPS) to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% and 11%, respectively, from fiscal 2025 to fiscal 2028, indicating a stabilization phase rather than high growth [7]. - The company is expected to leverage AI-driven recommendations and logistics upgrades to stabilize its core businesses while expanding its international marketplaces [7]. Tencent - Tencent's primary growth driver is WeChat, a super app with over 1.41 billion monthly active users, alongside its video game publishing business [8]. - Tencent's stock has seen a modest increase of 6% over the past five years, facing challenges from competition and regulatory pressures in the gaming sector [2][10]. - Analysts forecast Tencent's revenue and EPS to grow at a CAGR of 11% and 15%, respectively, from 2024 to 2027, supported by the integration of AI into its services and expansion into fintech and business services [12]. - The company is diversifying its revenue streams by enhancing its fintech services and expanding its overseas gaming business to mitigate reliance on the Chinese market [11]. Investment Comparison - Alibaba is trading at 17 times its next year's earnings, while Tencent is at 20 times, with Alibaba appearing cheaper but growing at a slower rate [13]. - Tencent is viewed as a more stable growth option due to the irreplaceable nature of WeChat for its users, despite facing competition in advertising and gaming [13][14]. - Both companies could attract more investors if U.S.-China trade tensions ease, but Tencent's growth strategies seem more robust compared to Alibaba's [14].

Group 1 - Alibaba is not primarily viewed as an AI stock, but rather as a leading e-commerce company in China, known for its significant role in creating shopping events like Singles Day [2][6] - The company is heavily investing in AI, with over $17 billion allocated to AI and cloud infrastructure in the past year, indicating a strong commitment to this technology [8] - Alibaba's cloud intelligence business is experiencing substantial growth, with a 34% revenue increase in the latest quarter, significantly outpacing the overall business growth of 15% [4][8] Group 2 - AI-related product revenue for Alibaba has shown remarkable performance, achieving nine consecutive quarters of triple-digit year-over-year growth, which is reshaping the company's stock narrative [5][8] - The e-commerce segments Taobao and Tmall contributed 45% of Alibaba's consolidated revenue in fiscal 2025, while also generating more than 100% of its consolidated adjusted EBITDA [7] - Unlike many companies investing in AI, Alibaba is not incurring debt or diluting stock, as its profitable e-commerce business is funding its AI initiatives [7][8]

Core Insights - Alibaba is positioned as a dominant player in China's online retail market, with its two main platforms, Taobao and Tmall, contributing significantly to its revenue and profitability [4][6] - The company generates substantial cash flow, allowing it to finance growth initiatives and return capital to shareholders through stock buybacks, despite operating some money-losing ventures [2][7] - Alibaba's e-commerce business has a high adjusted EBITDA margin of 44%, indicating strong profitability potential [6][7] Revenue and Profitability - Nearly half of Alibaba's revenue accounts for more than its entire profitability, highlighting a complex financial structure [3] - Taobao and Tmall together accounted for 45% of Alibaba's consolidated revenue in fiscal 2025 and delivered 113% of its adjusted EBITDA [6] Shareholder Returns - Alibaba has a modest dividend yield of 0.7% but prefers to return cash to shareholders through stock buybacks, having repurchased shares for 14 consecutive quarters, reducing its fully diluted share count by 13% since the end of fiscal 2021 [7]

Core Insights - Sea Limited's (SE) reliance on shipping subsidies has significantly contributed to Shopee's GMV growth, which increased by over 28% year over year to $32.2 billion in Q3 2025, indicating a strong market position in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Brazil [1][10] Financial Performance - Despite the impressive GMV growth, the cost of services surged by 38.8% due to increased logistics spending, leading to a 5.7% decline in value-added services revenues [2][10] - Shopee's adjusted EBITDA margin fell to 0.6% of GMV, highlighting ongoing profitability pressures from shipping and fulfillment costs [3][10] Competitive Landscape - Shopee faces intense competition from Alibaba and MercadoLibre, with Alibaba leveraging its logistics and technology ecosystem to maintain a strong market presence [5][6] - MercadoLibre reported a GMV of $16.5 billion, up 28% year over year, showcasing its robust position in Brazil and Latin America [7] Future Outlook - Sea Limited is working to regain cost control by expanding its in-house logistics arm, SPX Express, which is expected to handle most deliveries in key regions [4] - The Zacks Consensus Estimate projects revenue growth of 37.43% in 2025 and 26.21% in 2026, indicating potential for continued top-line growth [4] Valuation Metrics - Sea Limited's stock is currently trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 21.38, which is lower than the sector average of 27.76 [12] - The earnings estimates for 2025 and 2026 are $3.60 and $5.64 per share, respectively, reflecting year-over-year growth of 114.29% and 56.67% [15]

Core Insights - Alibaba Group did not experience a dramatic comeback in 2025 but shifted its narrative towards long-term growth strategies [1] - The company clarified its priorities by focusing on cloud and artificial intelligence, stabilizing its core e-commerce business, and repositioning itself as a broader technology and AI platform [2] Cloud and AI as Growth Engines - Alibaba Cloud emerged as the primary growth engine, with a reported cloud revenue growth of 34% year over year in the September 2025 quarter, driven by AI demand [4] - AI-related cloud revenue continued to grow at triple-digit rates, confirming the monetization of Alibaba's cloud business [5] - Alibaba now serves as a core infrastructure provider for AI adoption in China, with its cloud platform resembling the roles of Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure [6][7] E-commerce Stabilization - The core e-commerce business showed signs of stabilization, with customer management revenue returning to 10% growth in the half year ended September 30, 2025 [9] - Investors began viewing Alibaba's e-commerce as a mature foundation that supports investment in newer growth areas, rather than a declining asset [10][11] Strategic Repositioning - Alibaba is redefining itself as a technology and AI platform, emphasizing its role in cloud and AI services rather than solely as an e-commerce leader [12][14] - This strategic shift expands Alibaba's growth opportunities, moving beyond the natural limits of a commerce-only model [15] Investor Implications - The developments in 2025 provided coherence in Alibaba's growth narrative, with cloud and AI driving growth while e-commerce offers stability [16] - The company is seen as laying the groundwork for a more durable recovery, marking 2025 as a reset year rather than a comeback year [17]

Core Insights - Alibaba Group ended 2025 in a stronger position, with growth in cloud and AI segments, stabilization in e-commerce, and a clarified ambition to become a broader technology and AI platform [1][2] Group 1: AI-Driven Cloud Growth - Alibaba's cloud business showed significant growth in 2025, with AI-related workloads increasing at triple-digit rates, accounting for over 20% of external cloud revenue, validating past investments [4] - In 2026, the company must demonstrate that this growth translates into improved profitability rather than just increased scale, as AI workloads require substantial ongoing investment [5][6] Group 2: E-Commerce Stability - Alibaba needs to prove that its e-commerce segment can maintain stability without continuous financial support, having stopped the decline in its core commerce business in 2025 [7] - The focus for 2026 will be on sustaining market position against competitors without sacrificing margins, ensuring that commerce can generate steady cash flow to support investments in cloud and AI [8] Group 3: Quick Commerce Economics - Quick commerce became a strategic priority, but it significantly impacted profitability due to high fulfillment costs and competition, with adjusted EBITA for the commerce division falling 47% year-over-year in the first half of 2025 [10] - In 2026, Alibaba must show a clear path to improvement in quick commerce, including better order density and smarter subsidy use, to maintain investor confidence [11] Group 4: Focus and Discipline - Historically, Alibaba's weakness has been its lack of focus, pursuing too many initiatives simultaneously, which diluted accountability [13] - In 2026, the company must prioritize cloud, AI, and core commerce while ensuring clear capital allocation and consistent execution to build trust with investors [14] Conclusion - Alibaba enters 2026 with momentum but must prove the effectiveness of its strategic reset through improved profitability in cloud, self-sustaining e-commerce, narrowing quick commerce losses, and disciplined execution [15][16]

Core Insights - Baron Emerging Markets Fund reported a return of 10.89% in Q3 2025, outperforming the MSCI Emerging Markets Index (10.64%) and the MSCI Emerging Markets IMI Growth Index (11.48%) [1] - Year-to-date, the fund achieved a return of 31.79%, compared to 27.53% for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and 28.19% for the Proxy Benchmark [1] Company Highlights - Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is recognized as the largest retailer and e-commerce company in China, operating platforms like Taobao and Tmall [3] - Alibaba's stock experienced a one-month return of -1.23% but gained 75.28% over the last 52 weeks, closing at $155.96 per share with a market capitalization of $372.126 billion on December 09, 2025 [2] - The company is increasing capital expenditures, committing over $53 billion to enhance its cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities, driven by an acceleration in cloud revenue and positive momentum in quick commerce [3] - Alibaba's revenue for the fiscal first quarter of 2026 was reported at RMB 247.7 billion [4] - The company is gaining traction in quick commerce, with management focused on improving unit economics [3] Market Position - Alibaba is ranked 17th among the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds, with 130 hedge fund portfolios holding its stock at the end of Q3, up from 101 in the previous quarter [4] - Despite the potential of Alibaba as an investment, there are suggestions that certain AI stocks may offer greater upside potential with less downside risk [4]

Core Insights - Alibaba is positioning itself as a key player in China's AI transformation, with significant growth in its cloud revenue and AI-related services [1][2][18] - The company has developed a vertically integrated AI stack, similar to Western counterparts like AWS and Azure, enhancing its competitive advantage [10][14] Group 1: AI Growth and Cloud Revenue - Alibaba Cloud experienced a 34% year-over-year revenue growth, significantly outpacing the company's overall growth rate [6] - AI-related cloud revenue has shown triple-digit growth for nine consecutive quarters, indicating a structural shift in the company's growth engine [6][18] - The demand for AI workloads is driving companies across various industries in China to adopt Alibaba Cloud for its scale and mature ecosystem [7][8] Group 2: Full-Stack AI Strategy - Alibaba's AI strategy includes a large language model, Tongyi Qianwen (Qwen), which supports various applications in customer service, productivity, and content generation [11][12] - The company is also developing domestic AI chips to reduce reliance on U.S. suppliers and lower costs, further strengthening its AI technology pipeline [13] - This multi-layered approach allows Alibaba to build the necessary infrastructure, models, and tools for Chinese enterprises, enhancing its competitive position [14] Group 3: Ecosystem and AI Application - Alibaba's extensive digital ecosystem allows for the application of AI at scale, enhancing product search, logistics, and enterprise tools [15][16] - The integration of AI across various platforms creates a flywheel effect, improving operations and user experience, which in turn attracts more users and generates more data [16][17] - This unique ability to embed AI across multiple touchpoints provides Alibaba with monetization opportunities beyond just cloud revenue [17] Group 4: Investment Perspective - The recent quarterly results indicate that Alibaba's transformation into a central player in China's AI landscape is gaining momentum [18] - For long-term investors, Alibaba represents a strategic opportunity to participate in the AI boom, positioning itself as the foundational layer for AI in China [19]