Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Alibaba Group's June quarter 2022 results conference call. At this time, all participants are on listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a Q and A session. I would now like to turn the call over to Rob Lin, head of investor relations at Alibaba Group. Please go ahead.
Good day, everyone, and welcome to Alibaba Group's June quarter 2022 results conference call. With us are Daniel Zhang, Chairman and CEO, Joe Tsai, Executive Vice Chairman, Toby Xu, Chief Financial Officer. This call is also being webcast on our IR section of our corporate website. A replay of the call will be available on our website later today. Now, let me quickly cover the safe harbor. Today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. For detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties, please refer to our latest annual report on the Form 20-F and other documents filed with the U.S. SEC, or announced on the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we do not undertake any obligations to update these statements except as required under applicable law. Please note that certain financial measures that we use on this call, such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted EBITA, adjusted EBITA margin, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP diluted earnings per share or ADS, and free cash flow, are expressed on a non-GAAP basis. Our GAAP results and reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures can be found on our earnings press release. Unless otherwise stated, growth rate of all the metrics stated during this call refers to year-over-year growth versus same quarter last year. In addition, during today's call, management will give their prepared remarks in English. A third-party translator will provide simultaneous Chinese translation on another conference line.
Please refer to our press release for details. During the Q and A session, we will take questions in both English and Chinese, and a third-party translator will provide consecutive translations. All translations are for convenience purposes only. In the case of any discrepancy, management statements in the original language will prevail. With that, I will now turn the call to Daniel.
Thanks, Rob. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call today. We have delivered stable results after overcoming challenges in an extraordinary quarter. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, China's GDP grew by 0.4% in the last quarter, lowest since the outbreak of the pandemic. Retail sales decreased year-over-year in April and May due to the resurgence of COVID-19 in Shanghai and other major cities, and has slowly recovered in June. Despite the soft economic conditions, we managed to deliver stable revenues and narrowed losses in our several strategic businesses by improving operating efficiency. In response to these external macro uncertainties, our guiding principles have been, as I wrote in my annual letter to shareholders, "Be confident, be flexible, and be ourselves." We are confident about the future of the digital economy.
We are confident that digitalization as a universal trend across industry and the market, and this will constitute an increasing percentage of the total economy. Be flexible means actively adapting to the external challenge and finding our own path through the social economic development cycles. Be ourselves means focusing on our three core strategies, namely consumption, cloud, and globalization, and delivering high quality growth with ESG as a foundation for reaching our vision of becoming a good company that lasts 102 years. More specifically, we are executing our three core strategies and delivering high quality growth in the highly uncertain environment today in the following ways. On consumption, we are leveraging our strengths, which is our digital commerce infrastructure built on comprehensive fulfillment capabilities to serve diverse consumer segments and focus on consumption categories with higher certainty of demand.
We already achieved the target of 1 billion annual active consumers in China during the last fiscal year. Going forward, we will focus on growing our wallet share in different consumer segments instead of pursuing further absolute increase in our user base in China. On cloud, we will focus on enhancing our competitive advantage, which is our proprietary technologies, and serving the sectors and the customers that represent the future in social and industrial development. On globalization, we will focus on the markets with favorable economic development prospects in the next five to 10 years, investing in localized capabilities and building infrastructure in logistics and cloud. During the past quarter, Taobao and Tmall's GMV experienced a mid-single-digit % decline on a year-over-year basis. We saw signs of recovery since June as logistics and the supply chain situation gradually improved after COVID restrictions eased.
Over the past few months, daily active users and consumption-related page views of our Taobao app remain relatively stable despite the market volatility. Consumers with the highest spending power demonstrated strong loyalty to our platforms. In the 12 months ended June 30, 2022, more than 123 million annual active consumers each spent over RMB 10,000 on Taobao and Tmall. Representing a retention rate of approximately 98% compared to the prior 12-month period, which was on par with the data as of the end of March. 88VIP members, our most important premium users, continued to grow at a healthy rate to 25 million by quarter end, with annual average spending of over RMB 57,000 per member.
Starting in July, we are seeing gradual recovery of business performance compared to June, especially in the relatively more impacted category in the past few months, such as fashion and electronics. As we continue to grow our location-based digital commerce infrastructure in recent years, our diversified business models are showing complementary benefits. For example, while certain discretionary categories on Taobao, Tmall were negatively impacted by the pandemic, our Freshippo and Ele.me business captured growth opportunities in food and grocery, fulfilling family needs for daily necessities. In the past quarter, Freshippo's GMV grew over 30% year-over-year, and Ele.me's GMV of non-restaurant deliveries increased by over 50% year-over-year. We are aware that the overall growth of Taobao and Tmall's GMV was below China's retail sales growth in the past quarter, as we experienced increasingly fierce competition among various formats of e-commerce.
From Alibaba's perspective, I want to be clear about our competitive strategy. On the consumer side, we will continue to strengthen Taobao app's consumer mindshare as the main shopping destination with diversified experience of digital commerce formats. In a highly uncertain market environment, we will focus on serving the consumer groups with higher spending power while providing a matrix of consumer offerings with diversified value proposition for different user segments, such as Taobao Deals, Taocaicai, Idle Fish, and Freshippo, et cetera. On the merchant side, we will continue to enhance our tools and services to strengthen our marketplace position as a main platform for sustainable business operations. In addition, we will also take advantage of our quality of operations in China commerce. Our current scale is much bigger than our peers, and more importantly, our advantage in profitability is even larger.
Therefore, we will make the best use of our capital reserves by investing in building consumer mindshare, user experience, and the core capability in key areas such as logistics and after-sale services, and execute on these as our long-term strategy. During the COVID resurgence in major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing in April and May, the digitalized network integrating intracity commerce and fulfillment has become a new infrastructure in modern urban life. During the quarter, Ele.me's restaurant delivery volume were negatively impacted by COVID restrictions. However, Ele.me's GMV during the quarter was less impacted as order volume for non-restaurant deliveries such as food, grocery, and medicine increases, rapidly, which also contributed much higher basket size than restaurant deliveries. As COVID impact eased, Ele.me's operation has been recovering and its GMV resumed positive growth year over year in June.
At the same time, while Freshippo and Sun Art experienced negative impacts in offline sales during the pandemic this quarter, they play an important role in providing essential supply support for local communities, leveraging their digital sales and intracity fulfillment capabilities. The percentage of online sales for Freshippo and Sun Art during the quarter reached 68% and 36% respectively. Ele.me's unit economics turned positive this quarter, mainly due to increased average order value, as well as its ongoing focus in optimizing user acquisition spending and reducing delivery cost per order. Looking forward, Ele.me will continue to focus on its city strategies and strengthen its customer mindset from restaurant delivery to everything delivery, while improving its operating efficiency. We are confident about narrowing Ele.me's operating losses during the fiscal year.
Amap, another important business in our local consumer service segment, continue to grow towards a destination around service with discovery and transaction platform. In June, the number of average daily active users of Amap reached a new high of over 120 million, driven by eased COVID impacts and ongoing enrichment of local contents and services on the platform. Our international commerce retail businesses in Southeast Asia and Europe experienced a decline due to change in European Union's VAT rules, depreciation of local currencies, Russia-Ukraine conflict, and normalizing offline activities after COVID restriction lifted in the regions. In spite of these challenges, we still see great opportunities in the international market under the general trend of digitalization. Today, we have already established certain foothold in the international market. On a combined basis, our international commerce retail business have an annualized GMV of over $50 billion.
Going forward, we will continue to focus on growing both the cross-border model and the local commerce model, and building logistics as a core capability. Despite the near-term sales fluctuations, we will continue to focus on building the cross-border logistic network from China to Europe and the local logistic network in Southeast Asia. We believe the establishment of this infrastructure will bring long-term value. Our cloud revenue delivered 10% growth year-over-year during the quarter. The slowdown in revenue growth was a result of multiple factors, including slowing macroeconomic activities, decline in revenue from the top internet customer, softening demand from China internet customers, and a delay in parts of our hybrid cloud projects due to the impact of the COVID-19 resurgence. Looking forward, amidst uncertainties in economic outlook and the internet industry deceleration, our cloud business will continue to focus on the following areas.
Number one, building proprietary technology capabilities in key areas such as computing, big data, and artificial intelligence. Number two, capturing the growth opportunity in industrial internet by identifying the sunrise industries and customers. Number three, strengthening our cloud data security capabilities and defending our bottom line. We have been seeing some progress in these strategies. Contribution of cloud revenue from non-internet industries was 53% in this quarter, up more than five percentage points compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period, more and more enterprise customers are adopting DingTalk to work or study as COVID restrictions increase across the country. DingTalk will continue to strengthen its position as a digital workplace collaboration platform by further improving the capabilities and increasing user penetration of its core office products, such as document collaboration and virtual conferencing.
In addition, DingTalk will enhance its low-code application development platform to encourage the development and usage of more diversified digital business applications on DingTalk. As part of our ESG strategy, we are committed to corporate governance excellence and diversity at the board level. Earlier today, we announced two new independent directors' appointments. Ms. Irene Lee and Mr. Albert Ng are both respected business leaders with invaluable global insights as well as China experience. I believe their participation will add great value to our board. In addition, Mr. Dong Jianhua, one of our independent directors, will not seek re-election after his current term expiring in September. I would like to express our most sincere gratitude to Mr. Tong for his invaluable contribution to Alibaba over the years.
Finally, I would like to talk about our thoughts on the path forward in the current macro environment. The external uncertainties, including but not limited to international geopolitical dynamics, COVID resurgence, and China's macroeconomic policies and social trends are beyond what we as a company can influence. The only things we can do at this moment is to focus on improving ourselves. For example, as I mentioned earlier, we have made meaningful progress during the quarter in narrowing operating losses for several business units, such as Taobao Deals, Taocaicai, Freshippo, Ele.me, Lazada, and Youku, through operating efficiency enhancement and cost optimization. We are still in the process of improving the quality of operation across the organization. We are confident this is a result that we can deliver with certainty through our own efforts in a highly uncertain environment.
Despite the challenges we are facing, our overall financial position remains healthy, with strong free cash flow and net cash reserves, which is our biggest advantage. During uncertain times, we believe the best investment is to invest in ourselves, to build our core capabilities and to continue self-improvement. We will continue to focus on serving our high quality customers, building high quality infrastructure for digital commerce, and driving high quality technology innovations. We believe this will lay the foundation for our healthy and sustainable development over the long term. Thank you everyone for your time. I now will turn the mic over to Toby, who will walk you through the details of our financial statements.
Thank you, Daniel. Let me start with financial highlights for the quarter. This quarter, our total revenue was RMB 206 billion, stable year-over-year. China Commerce segment revenue slightly declined by 1% year-over-year to RMB 142 billion, while Cloud segment revenue grew by 10% year-over-year to RMB 18 billion. Income from operations for the quarter was RMB 24.9 billion, a decrease of 19% year-over-year, primarily due to decreases in adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA decreased by RMB 7.3 billion to RMB 34.4 billion. The decrease was primarily due to RMB 7.2 billion decrease in China Commerce segment EBITDA, partly offset by loss reduction of RMB 1.7 billion or 36% in Local Consumer Services segment.
Now let's look at cost trends for the quarter, excluding SBC as a percentage of revenue. Cost of revenue ratio increased to 62% in June quarter, primarily due to, firstly, higher proportion of our direct sales business such as Freshippo and Tmall Supermarket, as well as growth in Alibaba Health direct sales businesses that resulted in increased cost of inventory as a percentage of revenue. Secondly, growth of Cainiao businesses, which led to increase in logistics costs as a percentage of revenue, which is partly offset by the reduction in delivery cost per order of Ele.me. Product development expenses ratio remained stable at 5% in June quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Sales and marketing expenses ratio decreased to 12% in June quarter, reflecting our efforts in optimizing user acquisition and retention spending across businesses.
General and administrative expenses ratio increased slightly to 4% in June quarter. Non-GAAP net income was RMB 30.3 billion, a decline of RMB 13.2 billion year-over-year, mainly due to decrease in adjusted EBITDA and share of results of equity method investees. GAAP net income was RMB 20.3 billion, a decline of RMB 22.5 billion year-over-year, mainly due to decline in non-GAAP net income and decrease in net gains arising from change in market prices of our equity investments in publicly traded companies. Cash flow and balance sheet. As of June 30, 2022, we continue to maintain a strong net cash position of RMB 340 billion or $51 billion. Our strong net cash position is supported by robust cash flow generation.
In June quarter 2022, net cash from operation and free cash flow were RMB 34 billion and RMB 22 billion respectively. Majority of the difference is operating CapEx spending at RMB 11 billion, reflecting our investment in cloud businesses and logistics fulfillment infrastructure. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 38.6 million of our ADSs for approximately $3.5 billion under our share repurchase program. Now let's look at our segment results. Revenue from our China commerce segment in June quarter was RMB 142 billion, a decrease of 1% year-over-year. Customer management revenue decreased by 10% year-over-year to RMB 72 billion. Taobao and Tmall physical goods paid GMV decreased by mid-single-digit.
Customer management revenue growth lagged GMV growth this quarter, mainly due to higher order cancellations as a result of logistics bottleneck from COVID-19 resurgence and restrictions that resulted in supply chain and logistics disruption in April and most of May. In later May, as logistics capacity normalized, we saw recovering GMV driven by a successful June 18th shopping festival that was strongly supported by merchants and loyal consumers. If we further break down customer management revenue growth into advertising and commission revenue, commission revenue recorded mid-teens decline due to higher order cancellations. Total advertising revenue declined slightly faster than that of paid GMV decline. Direct sales and others revenue grew 8% to RMB 65 billion, primarily driven by strong growth of online purchases of food, grocery, and FMCG goods that benefited Freshippo, Tmall Supermarket, and Sun Art, partly offset by softening offline sales due to COVID-19 impacts.
The percentage of online sales of Freshippo and Sun Art reached 68% and 36% respectively during the quarter. By leveraging our multiple direct sales businesses and on-demand delivery infrastructure, we believe we are well positioned to better serve consumers' increasing demand for on-demand delivery of food, grocery, and daily necessities in the future. China Commerce segment adjusted EBITDA decreased by RMB 7.2 billion to RMB 43.6 billion in the quarter, which is mainly due to RMB 8 billion decline in CMR revenue. We are making progress to improve efficiency of loss-making businesses. The combined losses for Taobao Deals and Freshippo narrowed by RMB 1.5 billion year-over-year. Taocaicai losses increased moderately year-over-year and still delivered a robust GMV growth of more than 200% year-over-year.
Its losses reduced significantly quarter-over-quarter, driven by optimized pricing strategy, better sourcing capability, and lowered operating costs. Our international commerce segment revenue in June quarter was RMB 15.5 billion, an increase of 2% year-over-year. Revenue from international commerce retail business declined by 3% to RMB 10.5 billion, reflecting declining revenue of AliExpress and Trendyol, offset by positive revenue growth of Lazada. Revenue from our Alibaba.com wholesale business grew 12% to RMB 4.9 billion. The increase was primarily due to healthy 16% growth in value of transactions completed on Alibaba.com. That led to an increase in revenue generated by cross-border related value-added services. Lazada delivered healthy positive revenue growth as a result of GMV growth and active increase in monetization initiatives that resulted in a higher monetization rate.
Trendyol revenue slightly declined due to ongoing depreciation of lira despite robust order growth of 46% year-over-year. AliExpress experienced a decline in orders due to change in the EU's VAT rules, depreciation of euro against U.S. dollar, as well as ongoing supply chain and logistics disruptions due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. International commerce segment adjusted EBITDA loss widened by RMB 537 million to RMB 1.6 billion in June quarter. This was primarily due to increased investment in Lazada as they invest and expand into local consumer services and international B2C businesses, partly offset by reduced losses of Lazada as a result of revenue growth and enhanced operating efficiency. Revenue from local consumer services segment grew 5% to RMB 10.6 billion, primarily due to more efficient use of subsidies that were contra revenue of Ele.me.
Local consumer services adjusted EBITDA loss reduced by RMB 1.7 billion year-over-year to RMB 3 billion, primarily due to narrowed losses of our two home businesses. Ele.me's unit economics per order turned positive for the quarter, driven by increased average order value year-over-year, as well as its ongoing focus on optimizing user acquisition spending and reducing delivery costs per order. Revenue from Cainiao after inter-segment elimination was RMB 12.1 billion in June quarter, an increase of 5% year-over-year, primarily contributed by increase in revenue from consumer logistics service as a result of service upgrade to enhance consumer experience, partly offset by the decrease in international orders for AliExpress. In June quarter, 70% of Cainiao's total revenue was generated from external customers. Cainiao adjusted EBITDA losses were RMB 185 million, up by RMB 39 million.
The increase was primarily due to our investment in expanding the global smart logistic infrastructure, as well as reduced profit of AliExpress Fulfillment. We will continue our efforts in building comprehensive logistic and fulfillment infrastructure in China and internationally, laying the foundation for sustainable long-term growth for our digital commerce businesses. Revenue from our cloud segment of inter-segment elimination was RMB 18 billion in June quarter, an increase of 10% year-over-year. Year-over-year revenue growth of our cloud segment reflected recovering growth of overall non-internet industries, driven by financial services, public services, and telecommunication industries, partly offset by decline in revenue from the top internet customer and online education customer, as well as softening demand from other customers in China's internet industry.
For the quarter ended June 30, 2022, contribution of cloud revenue after inter-segment elimination from non-internet industries was 53%, up by more than 5 percentage points compared to the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA of cloud segment, which comprised of Alibaba Cloud and DingTalk, was a profit of RMB 247 million in June quarter, decreased by RMB 93 million year-over-year. This is primarily due to our investments in technology and increase in colocation and bandwidth costs as a result of increased usage of DingTalk's products and services from enterprises, schools, and organizations due to greater hybrid work adoption, driven by COVID-19 resurgence since March 2022 in China.
Revenue from our digital media and entertainment segment in June quarter was RMB 7.2 billion, a decrease of 10% year-over-year, primarily due to decrease in revenues from Alibaba Pictures, Youku, and other entertainment businesses. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of RMB 630 million, up by RMB 211 million year-over-year. Youku continued to narrow losses year-over-year, but was offset by increased losses of other entertainment businesses due to COVID impact. Let me wrap up with some final thoughts. Last quarter, we've shared with you some of our key operating principles and financial objectives that include focus on high quality growth, improve operating efficiency, and optimize cost structure, and maintain strong cash flow and net cash position. During the quarter, we have made progress in executing these objectives.
We saw losses narrowed year over year for a number of our businesses. We generated $3.3 billion in free cash flow, and currently has about $50.8 billion in net cash position, which gives us the financial flexibility to grow the business and improve returns for shareholders. Even though we are seeing a gradual demand recovery for China consumption businesses in the month of July, we believe there are still a lot of risks and uncertainties from slowing macro activities.
Facing these challenges, we will focus on delivering high quality growth of our three core strategies in this highly uncertain environment, as Daniel mentioned previously. Additionally, we will continue to focus on improving operating efficiency, optimizing costs, and invest in building long-term capabilities for our major businesses. Thank you. Now let's turn to Q and A.
Hi everyone. For today's call, you are welcome to ask questions in Chinese or English. A third party translator will provide consecutive interpretation for the Q and A session. Our management will address your question in the language you ask. Please note that the translation is for company's purpose only. In the case of any discrepancy, our management statement in the original language will prevail.
If you are unable to hear the Chinese translation, bilingual transcripts of this call will be available on our website within one week after the meeting. 大家好，今天的电话会议欢迎您用中文或英文提问。我们会有第三方工作人员提供实时的翻译。我们管理层会按您提问的语言回答您的问题。翻译目的是方便大家理解，如有任何疑义，请以我们管理层原始语言所做的陈述为准。如您无法听到中文翻译，本次电话会议的双语记录会在会议结束后的一周内在我们的官网上提供。Operator, please connect speaker and SI conference line now.
Please start Q and A session when ready. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. To give more people the opportunity to ask questions, please keep yourself to no more than one question at a time. Your first question comes from Ronald Keung from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
让我先问中文吧。那Daniel、Toby、Rob，谢谢你们的分享。那Daniel刚才说到这个六月有一些signs of recovery，所以想听一下我们无论是GMV或者CMR呢，最近的情况呢，跟我们分享一下吗？有也继续看到一些恢复，还有对下半年的一个展望。因为想听一下我们管理层怎么看消费市场，中长期的增长，还有这个刚才说电商的格局，包括在平台的一些让我们正常的疑问怎么看。谢谢。
Thank you, Daniel and Toby, for your earlier presentations. I note that you spoke to signs of recovery that you've seen from June onwards. I'm wondering if you could tell us more about the signs of recovery you're seeing in terms of GMV and CMR, what the outlook looks like for the coming half year, and how you see consumption recovering and developing in the medium to long term.
好，我来回答一下，就是关于这个最近的消费趋势。这个我觉得还是首先从我们的平台上看到，这个四五月份以后，六月份开始有恢复，随着这个供应链的恢复，特别是物流网络的正常化，这些基础设施的能力已经恢复了。那这个我们也看到，从消费来讲，包括通过618，我们也看到我们获得了618这个整个季节的正增长，这个也是得到不错的结果。进入到七月份以后，我们看到这个趋势在继续，这个整个的表现肯定七月份会比六月份还会改善一些。
Thank you. Well as regards the recovery that we're seeing in consumption trends, certainly on our platforms, we saw that following the period of April, May, going into June, signs of recovery certainly appeared, in particular with the recovery of delivery and logistics capabilities, the normalization of logistics, and certainly in this year 618 shopping festival, we saw very good performance with positive growth achieved for the quarter. We continue to see this positive trend of recovery continuing through July, and we expect that July will be even better than June.
在这个过程当中，我们也看到，还是要从消费的心理和消费者的预期来看，这个未来的走势。我们也看到，其实也是公开的数据，除了我们看整个的GDP的增长，包括涉零的社会零售的增长以外，还有一个数字，我们也非常关注，就是整个的消费支出，消费的平均支出占到可支配收入的占比，就是支出占可支配收入的占比。我们看到，在2022年的上半年，国家统计局的数字是64%，但是去年2021年是69%，所以这个还是有明显的一个下降。同时我们也看到，在城镇的收支比的下降幅度，应该看到比在农村还要更大一些。
在这个疫情下，包括在宏观经济走势的消费者预期下，我想这也是一个正常的反应啊。所以我们也通过这个过程当中看到，尽管消费在稳步逐渐的恢复当中，但是整个消费的愿望，这个很明显还要一个恢复的过程。
Another important piece in this recovery relates to consumer psychology and consumers expectations for the future. We can look at publicly available data, of course we look at GDP figures on nationwide retail sales. One data point that we pay a lot of attention to is consumer spending as a proportion of disposable income. The figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that figure consumer spending as a percentage of disposable income in the first half of the year was 64% as compared against 69% in the previous year in 2021. That proportion has been down in the first half of the year and even more so in urban areas than in rural areas. I think that's an entirely normal reaction on behalf of consumers in terms of consumer sentiment in the context of the pandemic. Certainly, although we are seeing signs of steady recovery in consumption, I think it will take more time for that to fully play out and for consumer confidence and sentiment to fully recover.
对于我们的中国零售平台来讲，我们的消费的整个变化趋势和商家的投入意愿度，其实历来是非常正向的，特别是在越困难的时候，其实对商家来讲也是希望能够更好地去拉动他的生意。所以在这个上面我们看到整个商家的经营意愿和能够做更多销售、能够获得更多消费者的青睐，这样的愿望其实还是一如既往地很强，甚至说更强，因为整个的每个商家都会面临他各自的挑战，所以越是这样，他越希望能够通过数字化的平台能够获得更好的一个结果。
In terms of merchants, certainly what we've seen on our China retail marketplaces is overall a strong positive sentiment from merchants to take full advantage of our marketplaces and the digital tools available there to drive their business growth, the strong enthusiasm on the part of merchants to drive their sales. All merchants have their own challenges, especially during this period. Merchants continue to want to take advantage of what we have to offer to overcome challenges and drive their sales.
谢谢。
Thank you.
Thank you, Daniel.
Next question.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Thomas Chong from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks, management, for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first question is about the EBITDA. We are seeing the EBITDA improvement is much better than market expectations. Just wonder how should we think about the China Commerce EBITDA as well as overall the EBITDA in terms of when we should expecting it to turn which is the inflection point positively on year growth in coming quarters. On the other hand, we're also noticing that the 1P business is also doing very well as well. Just want to ask about our thoughts about the strategies ahead as well as the revenue contribution and margin profile in the long run. Thank you.
好，谢谢您的问题。那第一个问题我来回答一下，就是关于您关于这个成本控制的。在上个季度的这个整个earnings call的时候，我们当时也讲过了，我们会十分关注整个的成本优化跟相关的控制。那在这个过程当中，我们制定了我们自己的很多的一些策略，在如何做这个成本优化控制上，对于不同的我们的业务都有不同的一定的策略来执行。那在这个季度里面，大家可能也看到了，从这个整个的成本优化当中，我们还是得到了比较好的一个结果。
Thank you. I will take the first part of the question relating to our cost control. As you'll recall, during last quarter's earnings call, we indicated that we would be prioritizing cost structure optimization and cost control. On this front, we've implemented a whole range of different strategies across our different businesses. I think certainly what you're seeing this quarter is that this overall cost control strategy has been paying off with good results.
那在接下来这个整个财年接下来的季度里面，我们整体的这样一个成本优化控制的方案会继续执行。所以在未来的整个季度里面，我们还是会继续去执行我们的策略，聚焦在整个的优化我们的成本、提高效率等各个方面。所以我想这个策略的执行还是很关键的一点是落实，所以我们会坚定地继续去落实这些成本的执行，在未来的几个季度里面。
In the coming quarters and the remainder of this fiscal year, we will continue to pursue the strategy of cost optimization and cost control. We'll continue to implement the policies that we've defined to optimize our cost structure, further drive efficiencies. Of course, the key to all of this really is execution. We will continue to execute on these policies for the coming few quarters.
刚才Daniel也提到过，包括我自己的这个script里面讲到过，我们还是有挺大的一个整个的财务灵活性。所以在某一些方面我们会去平衡好成本优化，跟在某一些方面投入这样一个平衡。那在一些领域，包括我刚才提到过，在我们的一些技术等等方面的领域，我们还是会坚定地去投入。这个在我们很多的一些能力建设，包括我们的一些基础能力建设方面，我们还是会继续地去投入，这样才会有一个更长期的可持续的发展。
Daniel mentioned, and as I also mentioned in my script, we're in a financial position that allows us to have considerable flexibility in terms of our approach. Therefore, we will be seeking a balance between cost optimization and control on the one hand, while also continuing to make important investments, investing in technology, and investing in other core areas to build our capacities, to better position ourselves for sustainable and long-term growth.
您提到过这个您问的关于整个我们EBITDA margin的问题，其实当我们在做整个效率提升跟成本优化的过程当中，很自然地最终反映的结果会反映在我们的EBITDA的margin上。我们也相信，我们坚持高质量的增长，高质量的高效率的增长，最终还是会帮助我们在最终的EBITDA margin上，做到这样的一个提升。
The other part of your question had to do with our EBITDA margin. Certainly as we continue to optimize our cost structure and drive further efficiencies, the improvements will be reflected in our EBITDA margin. We expect that as we further pursue high quality growth and high efficiency growth, we'll continue to achieve that kind of improvement in our EBITDA margin.
好，第二个问题，请Daniel。
好，这个我在讲第二个问题之前，这个讲完之前，还再补充一下这个关于成本优化和margin的事情啊，这个我还是想强调一下，就是对阿里来讲，我们，这个对于成本优化绝对不是一个财务视角的一个工作，啊它是跟我们整个战略选择，对环境的判断和阶段和战略取舍是高度有关系的。
Thank you. This is Daniel. Before I take the other part of the question about the 1P model, I'd like to add a few more comments on that previous piece to do with cost structure optimization and efficiency. What I'd like to highlight is that for Alibaba, pursuing cost optimization and driving efficiency is not a decision that's primarily driven by financial considerations. Rather, it's very much informed by our strategic choice and our judgment of the overall macro environment we find ourselves in.
在上个季度和这个季度，我在script里都讲到了，我们追求高质量增长是我们一贯的经营方针。在这个经营方针下，我们追求能够服务好高质量的用户，能够建立高质量的数字商业的基础设施，并且持续进行高质量的技术创新。这是我们能够让我们业务成长，并且获得更可持续、更好财务成果的一个基础，所以我们一直坚持这样做。
As I said in my prepared remarks, both last quarter and this quarter, it is Alibaba's consistent strategy to pursue high quality development. That means focusing on serving high quality users. It means investing in high quality technology innovation, and providing high quality digital infrastructure for commerce. All of this allows us to support business development and achieve sustainable and healthy financial results, and we will very much continue to do so.
在这个新的财年开始以来，因为这是第一个季度，我在刚才的script也讲到了，我们在消费侧，根据这个宏观的环境的变化，尤其是我们自身在去年已经完成了十亿年度活跃消费者的这么一个milestone的基础上，我们今后的工作重点，是这个从绝对的用户数的规模的增加，不断地去获得新用户的增加，转移到了能够获得现有用户。其实我们十亿消费者已经覆盖了中国几乎所有的活跃的消费者。能够服务好这些消费者，真正服务好他们，做好他们的分层分类的运营，提升每一层用户的他们的这个钱包份额。我想这样的重点的变化，对我们整个的这个效率优化，刚才大家问到的这个margin的提升也好，改善也好，都有很大的帮助。
Going into this new fiscal year, now in the first quarter.
On the consumer side, you know, looking at the changes in the macro environment, overall, and given that we have already achieved the important milestone of having 1 billion AACs, our future strategy going forward will shift from a focus on new user acquisition, because we already have within that 1 billion AAC user base essentially all of the active consumers in China. Instead, going forward, we'll focus on building our relationship, deepening our relationship with our existing user base, better segmenting that user base and ensuring that we have compelling propositions for all tiers and cohorts within that user base to continually grow our share of wallet with the existing consumers that we have. All of this will, we believe, be conducive to serving higher efficiency and improving margins.
对，这个要做好这样的用户的分层用户的服务，其实我们在过去两年，我们在这个刚才Thomas也问到了，在Core Commerce上面为什么可以有改善？这个话简单回答，就是因为我们今天已经建立了服务不同用户的一个消费矩阵，在这个消费矩阵上，我们提供不同的价值点。今天我们认为这个消费矩阵是能够很好地来分类地满足用户的需求。所以在这个基础上，我们今天可以说前两年我们的这个投入，是有一个阶段性的成果，让我们有这样的一个现在的空间，去进行在此基础上进一步走向服务不同层次用户的钱包份额。同时在财务上也会表现出来，有更好的这个财务的效率。
To elaborate further on our consumer segmentation strategy, because Thomas noted the improvement that we've made in the performance of Core Commerce segment, and I think a lot of that has to do with the investments that we've made over the past two years to build a differentiated matrix of offerings for these different consumers within our user base, providing differentiated demand to different cohorts of consumers through this matrix. The investments that we've made over the past couple of years in that matrix are very much starting to pay off and have put us in a very solid position to continue to grow our share of wallet with all of those consumers and of course, as a result, to further improve our financial performance figures.
对，这个也高度跟第二个问题有关联，就是对于阿里来讲，这个我们在Core Commerce当中，1P还是3P，我们觉得还是用哪个方式消费者更满意，好我们就选择哪个方式，这是我们现在的经营思想。
This of course is also highly relevant to your other question about the 1P model. For Alibaba, when it comes to the 1P model and the 3P model, it really comes down to whichever model is best able to satisfy the demands of our consumers. That's what we want to give the consumers.
但是我们也是在这个，尽管我们也在做一部分1P的业务，但是我们是重新定义了1P的业务，我们不希望因为这个1P的业务成为一个线上的e-tailer，而成为供应商，就是品牌合作伙伴和消费者之间的一堵墙。相反，我们希望尽管是我们通过从品牌商这里去采购，在1P模式下销售给消费者，但是最后品牌商可以运营消费者的效果，跟3P的模式是一样的，同样有这样的一个数据分享、消费者洞察。同时也因为1P也能够提高它对货品的运营效率，提升它的供应链的效率和物流服务的体验。
However, in developing our 1P strategy, we have very much redefined what 1P is all about and how it works, because we don't want to become a traditional e-tailer that erects a wall between brands on the one hand and consumers on the other. Very much to the contrary, within our 1P model, we're buying from the brands and selling to consumers, but we're giving brands visibility and giving them the ability to engage with their consumers to achieve insight into what's happening with their consumers, and also of course, to drive further efficiency around their supply chains and their logistics operations.
当然，我们也更不会在1P的业务下去做这个打着消费者零售的旗号去做批发业务，只是为了把业务规模做大，我们更不会做这样的事情。
Certainly we will not take advantage of the 1P model to engage in price competition.
Next question please.
Thank you. The next question comes from Alex Yao from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
谢谢管理层给我这个机会。首先我还是几个关于降本增效的问题。第一个呢，是想再听听Daniel聊一下这个降本增效背后的底层商业逻辑。刚才您是从整个集团的发展阶段讲这个问题的，就是我们已经结束了用户增长期，进入到了这个，其实本质上是用户运营期嘛，分层地去增加各个消费群体里面我们在他们上面的钱包份额占比。但如果从业务线的角度来讲，那是不是有一些其他的看法呢？比如说是不是某些行业的数字化的进展慢于咱们之前的预期，或者说一些方向的这个战略目标有所调整。然后第二个，关于降本增效的问题就是能不能给我们具体分享一下，在这个季度我们落地的核心的降本增效的措施，以及未来几个季度会接下来怎么做。那另外就是当我们在减少早期项目的投入，早期项目我指的是就是现在变现效率还比较差一点，然后集团还处在亏损项目本身还处在亏损的状态的一种项目的时候，咱们管理层是怎么思考短期的财务和长期的这个增长之间的平衡点？谢谢。
Thank you. I have some follow up questions regarding the efforts the group is making to optimize costs and drive efficiencies. In particular, regarding the underlying commercial logic you talked about as a matter of group strategy, better segmenting consumers and driving growth of wallet share. Are you seeing the pace of digitalization playing out more slowly in some segments than others? You know, how are these efficiency and cost optimization strategies playing out in the different segments? Also in relation to the early stage businesses I'm talking about the newer businesses that are still loss-making. How are you balancing, you know, the need to control costs and drive efficiency on the one hand, against the need for long term investment and growth?
好，谢谢。这是一个很好的问题，我刚才已经简单阐述了一下，我再补充几句，就是这个问题，就是Alex这个问题。那我想整个从战略上来考虑，我刚才说了，就是今天，我们已经初步形成了一个消费的矩阵，我们有这个最丰富完整的旗舰，我们的淘宝，我们也有这个我们的新的消费的这个服务性价比用户的淘特，我们也在这个社区团购如火如荼的时候，我们非常的克制，但是我们去进行了模式的尝试，做了淘菜菜，包括我们有河马，有闲鱼，其实都是非常清晰的这样的一个用户定位。那今天我想在整个降本增效这个季度去如果能够取得一些快速的效果的话，其实有一个最底层的一个逻辑，就是我们还是觉得消费者的心智，在这个消费者的心智，还是今天阿里经过这么多年建设以后，最宝贵的财富就是用户的mindshare，这个用户的mindshare意味着你不需要花钱，用户就会回来。尤其是在整个消费意愿整体上变得比以前的年度相对弱的时候，这个同样的情况下，消费者能不能自己回来？你有我们叫自来水，有没有organic traffic，有没有organic的访问，而且是带着它是消费意愿倾向的这样的一种访问和浏览。我刚才说了，即使在这个季度比较困难的时间，我们的网上的这个用户的DAU和这个消费的这个page view，其实还是相对稳定的，这个说明用户跟我们在一起，用户他回来就是来找消费、消费相关的信息，所以这个是我们最宝贵的东西，这也是我们在这个策略上，看到这个已经有十亿用户基础以后，同时又有差异化的这个APP的矩阵可以服务不同价值需要的用户以后，我们做调整的在中国零售商业当中能够取得一些效果的一个非常重要的一个基础。
Thank you. Well, in terms of strategy, something very important we've been doing is building a complete consumer matrix with Taobao as our flagship app, Taobao Deals to serve consumers who are more price sensitive and making forays into consumer group buying, which has become very hot with Taocaicai. We also have Freshippo and Idle Fish, all of these pieces, with their respective, you know, very clear value propositions and target use cases and consumer groups. What's extremely important for us is that we have consumer mindshare. This is the underlying commercial logic. This is in fact the most valuable asset that Alibaba has as a company, is that consumer mindshare.
You know, we don't need to be paying money to induce the consumers to come back. We have that mindshare of the consumers, and that's what's capable of driving a lot of organic traffic that we get consumers coming back, even when their willingness to consume may have weakened during the pandemic period coming to us. As I share with you know, our DAU figures and page views have remained relatively stable throughout that period. We have the 1 billion consumers within our AAC user base and a strong differentiated matrix of different apps. This positions us to further improve that mindshare and capture the opportunities.
Uh,
This is certainly relevant to what we can call the wide area network, the entire nationwide e-commerce market. It's particularly relevant also to what we can call the local area network or local commerce. Regional and intracity commerce. Where we've been focused on different cities and regions with the businesses including Taocaicai and Freshippo and Ele.me. Because you need to achieve economy of scale in a particular city or particular region to drive down your unit costs in that particular locality. After several years of experience in this space, we've come to realize that it's not really significant to look at the entire nationwide market as a whole.
Really, you have to look at one city or one region in terms of whether you're achieving that economy of scale there and take a city-by-city or region-by-region approach. That's something I would like to share with all of the analysts on the line. That's how you can develop a truly three-dimensional perspective. In line with that perspective, we're deploying our strategy where we select different cities and regions and prioritize resources to develop there on a city-by-city, region-by-region basis to achieve those local economies of scale. In the context of the current macroeconomic environment, as I mentioned earlier, our initiatives to drive better cost efficiency are not driven from a financial perspective. In terms of our strategy, we will continue to make investments where investments are needed and justified.
We'll continue to strengthen the parts of our matrix that need strengthening. We'll continue to invest in building our underlying capabilities and improving our relevant services in order to create long-term value.
Okay, next question.
Thank you. The next question comes from John Choi from Daiwa. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. My question's on cloud. You know, I think, Daniel, you mentioned on your prepared remarks, you know, one of the reasons why the growth has slowed down in Q2. As we see, you know, economy kind of picking up a bit, since Q2, as you spoken on July, like how should we think about the cloud revenue growth momentum towards the second half of the year? On top of that, you know, I think management did mention previously that the SaaS elements like DingTalk potential monetization opportunities. You know, where are we right now with these initiatives? Are you seeing the macro uncertainty companies kind of pushing back, you know, these deployments or initiatives?
If so, how would that impact our strategy going forward? Thank you.
Hey, John. Your first part of your question was broken up. Can you just quickly summarize what you were asking?
Okay. My question was basically on the cloud group revenue growth opportunity in the second half. I think Daniel did mention why the Q2 was a little bit softer than usual. As we look into second half, how should we think about the growth opportunities on the cloud business?
这个问题主要是想了解，在下半年的时候，云业务的收入增长趋势如何？因为好像Daniel在刚才介绍当中提到本季度这个云业务增速是较往年疲软，那么下半年怎么看？
Well, let me answer this question. I think we still need to look at the macro landscape. I think if you look at the IT expenditure, I mean, as a percentage of total GDP, I think China is far below like U.S. and other developed or some developed countries. I think that's the biggest landscape. The second biggest thing is as I said actually industrial digitalization is a trend. All the companies, all the sectors, cross industries, cross sectors need digitalization. I think that's the second very important thing. I think in this regard, in general, if you look at big picture, I think it's not a cyclical opportunity.
It's like a structural opportunity, I mean, for the long term. So that's why I think in China and in the global market, we actually position cloud as one of the core strategies.
好，我想这个问题呢，还是要看宏观大局来加以理解。那么第一个宏观大局，就是我们来看一看这个IT支出占全国GDP的一个百分比，那么在中国呢，这个占比呢，是远低于美国等发达国家的这个占比，这是第一。那么第二个的话呢，现在产业的数字化是一个大的趋势，各行各业各类的企业都需要进行数字化的转型升级。所以从这样一个宏观大局来分析来出发的话呢，我认为云这个机会它不是一个所谓周期性的机会，是结构性的这个机会。因此的话呢，无论在中国还是在国际市场也好，我们都会把云定做我们其中一个核心的战略。
Well, the next point I want to make is that, if we look at the market opportunities, actually, if we revisit the fast growth of the cloud business in the previous years, I think that one of the very important driver was the internet companies, because these companies are digitally savvy and they want, they need, they have big data and they will make full usage of the big data, and they need a computing power. So I think this is also, I mean, given our Alibaba Cloud a very huge opportunity to transform cloud computing from a technology to a real business. Now we are very happy that we are in the leading position in this sector.
Well, I think going forward, especially in China, with the slowdown of the internet sector, and many people talk about what's the next generation after this consumer internet. Actually, the consensus is very straightforward, industrial digitalization. I think now we are coming to an era, every company become a internet company. Actually is not internet, is a digital company. I think so that's why internally we highlight the revenue contribution from non-internet companies, and we are happy to see the percentage point is increased. Like, as we disclose this quarter, we improved like by five percentage point as compared to the same quarter last year. I think going forward we will try to capture the opportunity in vertical industries.
Of course AI, I mean, our continuous investment and innovation in the proprietary technology.
那么要讲的下一点，就是我们可以回顾前几年云业务快速增长的一个背景，就是说，有很多的互联网公司，他们本身是数字化的公司，它有大量的数据，它又需要对这些数据进行大数据的分析，那么为此它需要很多的算力。那么，这个给了我们机会，可以把阿里的云技术从技术变为一个实实在在的业务，那我们非常高兴，就是在这一方面，我们已经是领先的公司。
未来的话，中国互联网行业放缓的背景下，下一个增长点会是什么？其实很简单，就是整个产业的数字化。在产业数字化的年代里，每个公司都会变成一个数字化的公司。所以我们在阿里的话，我们经常会关注的一个数字，就是我们云业务当中，这个收入当中有多少占比是来自非互联网的公司，我们也很高兴看到这个占比是在提升的。我们已经有披露，就是这个季度是同比增加了5个百分点。未来的话，我们还会继续针对不同的垂直行业，推出更多的这些应用来捕捉相关的机会。
当然也有一点必须要说的，就是整个云的业务的增长，其实离不开整个经济的增长。经济增长以后，其实作为这个经济的微观细胞，每个企业才会在数字化的进程当中，更愿意投入，更少后顾之忧，是这样去投入。所以这块是大环境和大的经济的增长的前景也高度有关系。但是在这个中间，毫无疑问，为什么我在script里面强调还是要抓住朝阳产业，抓住有未来的产业的机会，因为同样经济增长一定是有人跑赢大盘，有的行业跑输大盘，所以还是要抓住这个跑赢大盘的产业的机会。
Now of course when it comes to company's willingness to spend on cloud and invest in cloud technology, you also need to look at the overall economic growth picture of the market as a whole. When the economy is doing well and companies are growing fast, performing well, they'll be of course more willing to invest. There is, of course a macro impact there as well, but this is also why in my script I emphasized why we're looking closely at sunrise industries. Because within any economic context, there will always be some sectors and some companies that are on the rise that can outperform the economy as a whole, and we want to prioritize service to them.
Thank you. Next question.
Thank you. The next question comes from Yang Bai from CICC. Please go ahead.
管理层好。其实我的问题是这样啊，就是在过去的几年呢，我们都观察到用户的习惯在经历一些变化，也许这是所有短视频之外的互联网公司都能够真切地感受到的，那就是越来越多的用户跟时间呢，都沉淀在这个短视频上面。所以我想请问就是，在管理层看来，这种外部的变化对于电商领域的影响，接下来我们的判断它是仍然是在一个快速上升的时期，还是已经到了一个相对比较成熟的这个阶段啊，也就是说啊站在公司的角度，甚至跳出公司的这个视角，就是为了更好地应对这种来自用户和商户行为习惯的这个变化，那么阿里会做哪些主动的战略调整啊？以及有哪些是我们不会去做的。谢谢。
Thank you. My question has to do with changes that we've seen in user behavior over the past few years with more and more user time being spent consuming short form video. I'm wondering if you can talk about the impact that that's having and can be expected to have on e-commerce going forward. Do you expect to continue to see fast growth there? Or do you think that it's already a mature situation that we're seeing today and given this trend in order to better serve consumers and merchants what strategic changes will Alibaba proactively seek to make and what kinds of changes will Alibaba not make?
好，我来讲一下这个问题啊。这个首先这里边有一个概念的混淆，啊这个短视频是一种产品的表现方式，电商是一个产业。啊电商公司用短视频今天是现实，啊短视频也已经不是什么新的技术。
Well, I'd like to begin by clarifying this concept to avoid any confusion. Short form video is a format, a content format that can be used to convey information regarding a product, whereas e-commerce is an industry and within the e-commerce industry, the use of short form video as one of multiple formats is nothing new at this point.
我补充一个信息，今天在阿里的，比如我们手机淘宝的平台上，我们超过一半的商品，这个也许五年前都是用图片文字来表达这个商品，今天超过一半的商品是用短视频来表达的。
In fact, I can disclose to you that on the Alibaba's mobile Taobao app today, more than one half of products are now being displayed to consumers via the short form video modality. If five years ago it would have all been images and text today, it's already more than half of that content is in video form.
对，其实我想你的问题，我猜你的问题讨论的问题不是短视频和电商之间的问题，是娱乐和电商之间的问题。那这里的问题最终就是我前面讲的，阿里这么多年下来，我们建立的最宝贵的资产是用户的mindshare，我们——他要消费，要来我们这里。
I believe that your question really isn't about the relationship between short-form video and e-commerce. It's really about the relationship between entertainment and e-commerce. You know, as I said earlier, the most valuable asset that Alibaba owns today that we built up over the years is mindshare. Users come to Alibaba with a consumption mindset.
当然我们也很多时候也会说消费就是娱乐的一部分，但是在这里边，阿里就专注于做好娱乐里边的一种品类，就是消费的这个子品类。我们认为这个品类已经足够大，也是足够，足够里边有很多的这个knowhow要学习，所以我们一直专注于做好这个品类。那么在这个过程当中，我们也不断地去学习，去采用各种新的技术，这么多年下来，我们无论在这个最早的无线化，到后来的个性化，到直播，到短视频，我想无非在如何用好各种的新的产品和技术来满足用户的体验。我想今天短视频绝对不是最后一个新的技术，在不远的将来一定会又改变消费者的消费体验，当然也会改变消费者除了消费以外的别的娱乐体验。但是任何一个平台最终都要有一个清晰的用户定位，它首先是服务于用户的什么需求，什么是主食，什么是甜点，我想这个是最核心的一个定位问题。
No, of course, it is often being said that shopping is fun. You know, consumption is a kind of entertainment. To that extent, Alibaba is in the entertainment industry as well. We're hyper focused on one subcategory of entertainment, namely shopping and consumption. It's a very specialized area that requires a lot of knowhow and that is very much our focus. Now we'll of course, going forward, continue to learn about and adopt all kinds of new technologies as we've done over the years. You know, going mobile, introducing customization, personalization, adopting short-form video and I'm certain that short-form video is not the last technology that will come along. New technologies will continue to come to the consumer experience both in the consumption context and in the entertainment context. I think it's important to understand, you know, what is the entree and what is the dessert.
Next question.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Alicia Yap from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
管理层晚上好，谢谢接受我的提问。我有最后这个问题，就是想问一下 Daniel，阿里巴巴现在面临的最大的障碍和挑战是什么？然后公司对于我们现有的人才保留的一些策略，还有就是说未来还有哪一些领域我们现在是还没有投资而有兴趣的，譬如说像一些新能源什么的，管理层能有一些评论吗？谢谢。
Thank you. My question goes to Daniel Zhang. I'd like to ask please what at this stage is the biggest obstacle or challenge faced by Alibaba? What is your talent strategy for talent retention? And also what potential areas of investment is Alibaba interested in that you're not yet in but you might get into, for example new energy? Thank you.
好，我回答一下。首先你说到的就是阿里这个现在的挑战是什么？我想我们任何一家企业，无论是阿里还是所有的公司企业，都是一个社会的一个微观细胞。阿里过去这么多年走到今天，是因为中国的高速发展，因为中国经济的成长，这个成就了阿里，给到阿里机会，我们才能走到今天。我们也是希望就是今天这个在未来的一个阶段，这个中国会越来越好，社会会越来越好，这样的话，我们做消费，这个水大鱼大，这个消费的愿望才会更强，老百姓对美好生活的追求的愿望才会更强，才能够更能够满足他们。所以我想这个是我们今天在对于整个的这个大的环境，我想是我们所有企业赖以生存和发展的基础。当然在这个其中，作为一个微观的一份子，我们也希望能够更好地尽到我们的社会责任，能够为这个创造就业，能够为这个服务中小企业创造新的，把技术和商业和社会发展更好地结合起来，做我们的贡献。所以在这个上面，我们一直是这样做的，我们也会继续这样做。那今天也，或者先翻译一下。
Thank you. Well, you asked about the biggest challenge faced by Alibaba. You know, Alibaba like any other company anywhere is like a microcosm in the social organism. Alibaba is where it is today and has achieved success, because of the overall economic growth story and the tremendously successful economic growth story of China that has provided the opportunities that have allowed us to succeed, over the years. Going forward, we would certainly hope to continue to see China continue to get better, see social development, continue to make progress, because the bigger and better the pond, the bigger and healthier the fish in the pond can become.
We can further help people realize their aspiration for a better life as things get better across the board. Certainly the macro environment is an important underpinning going forward as it has been in the past. As a microcosm in that social organism, Alibaba continues to practice social responsibility. We seek to create jobs, to empower SMEs, and to better marry technology with commerce for the betterment of society. We've always done that, and we will continue to do so.
对，你问到一个相关的问题，就关于人才。其实对阿里来讲，我们所有的能够为客户服务的基础，我们的所有的经验、技术，其实都在于最宝贵的资产，就是我们的人，都来源于人。所以我们对人的这样的一个人才的渴望，对人才的投入，我们是一如既往地坚持。在这个过程当中，我正好也借这个机会分享一下，现在正好是八月份，正好是新的一年，大学生毕业以后走向社会的时间。我们今年尽管也看到了一些宏观情况的一些不确定性，包括疫情各方面，但是我们还是坚持，到目前，我们今年整个有接近六千名的大学应届毕业生，现在绝大多数已经到阿里已经上岗。这也是我们希望在最需要的时候，能够为社会做出贡献，同时也是阿里自身的需要，能够不断地有新鲜的血液来补充进来，能够加速我们整个的作为一家已经年轻、但是又是已经有悠久历史的互联网公司的一个新陈代谢，能够用不断的人才推进我们的事业，能够有不断的新的创新。谢谢。
You also asked about talent, and talent is of course absolutely critical for Alibaba. We rely on talent to do everything that we do to serve our customers. Our talent base is our store of extremely invaluable know-how within the company. Of course, we continue to treasure our talent and invest in talent and to recruit high quality talent. On that note, I can share with you, now that we're in August, it's the time of year when university graduates have just left college and are looking for jobs. You know, despite all of the macro uncertainties that we see out there, I'm pleased to tell you that we've hired 6,000 fresh university graduates from across China. Most of them have already reported to work and are on the job at Alibaba. This, of course, is an important contribution that the company is making to society by providing these jobs. Of course, it's also something that Alibaba very much needs. We need to continue to stay fresh. We need to take on that fresh blood. If you like, this is refreshing the metabolism of our company, which is indeed a young internet company, but one with some considerable history that needs this kind of ongoing refreshment.
对，最后说一下您刚才问到的，Alicia你问到的这个新的增长点这些方面的问题。我想就这个新的技术，新的产业机会层出不穷，这个作为一个企业，我觉得我们还是要站在阿里的核心战略的视角来看待这些新的技术的出现，新的产业机会的出现。
Alicia, the other part of your question had to do with new investment opportunities in emerging new growth areas. You know, the fact is that there will always be an infinite number of new technologies and new industries on the rise. For any company and for Alibaba, we need to view those opportunities through the lens of our core strategy.
就是比如说今天你讲到的新能源这样的一些机会，这是一个巨大的机会，产业机会。那今天对阿里来讲，这个我们讨论新能源的机会，我就举这个例子，我们首先会从云计算的角度去考虑这个机会，因为这个整当这样的一个朝阳产业，这个成型发展其实是站在一个更高的一个社会起点上，就第一天它就可以是一个全部生产要素数字化的这样的一个产业。云计算能够在中间发挥巨大的作用，这就是我们看待这些新行业的机会，包括像我们讨论的自动驾驶，包括讨论的Metaverse，这些我们都是围绕着消费、物流，比如自动驾驶物流，Metaverse围绕消费的体验，刚才说的新能源，包括其他的一些产业机会，围绕云计算的角度，我们去寻找这样的机会，获得跟这个产业共成长的机会。也是因为这个拓宽我们自己的赛道。同时在这个过程当中，我们还有很重要的一点，就是走向全球。今天如果说我们的三大战略，我一直说我们是两纵一横，两纵就是我们的消费，我们的云计算，我们看很多新的机会，站在这两个视角看，这是垂直看。
New energy is of course a huge opportunity. For Alibaba, we seek to leverage that opportunity mainly in the context of our cloud business. Because as I've talked about in these sunrise industries, new and emerging industries, it's possible to leapfrog to a higher level faster, jumping past the previous development stages. You can quickly adopt these new technologies and fresh approaches. The same is also true of autonomous vehicles and the Metaverse as well, linking that to our consumption business and logistics. The Metaverse in relation to our consumption and autonomous vehicles in relation to our logistics. New energy is very much linked to our cloud business.
We're finding opportunities to leverage the emergence of these new technologies and these new industries in our existing businesses, viewing it through those lenses. The other piece is, of course, globalization. You know, I've often talked about our three core strategies of consumption, cloud and globalization, two horizontal and one vertical. You know, we're looking at how we can leverage these technologies in terms of commerce, consumption and cloud, but also looking at whether some kinds of know-how from China can be taken into global markets or whether in global markets there are opportunities that can be pursued there. Those continue to be our three core strategies.
Okay. Well, thank you everyone for joining our conference call today. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to the Alibaba IR team. Thank you.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.