May 13 (Reuters) - China's Alibaba on Wednesday posted a 3% rise in fourth-quarter revenue on robust growth for its cloud computing and AI divisions, while its e-commerce unit benefited from a new round
of government subsidies.
U.S.-listed shares of the company were up more than 2% in premarket trading.
Like other major tech giants, Alibaba too has benefited from soaring business demand for artificial intelligence.
This year it rolled out an enterprise-focused AI platform that coordinates multiple AI agents to handle complex tasks including editing documents, transcribing meetings and executing research.
Revenue from Alibaba's Cloud Intelligence Group surged 38% to 41.63 billion yuan ($6.13 billion) from a year ago and was a touch ahead of estimates of 41.27 billion yuan.
Consumer confidence in the world's second-largest economy has been fragile for years due to a prolonged property market downturn, while rising fuel prices due to the Middle East conflict have added to the cost of living.
Still, China's e-commerce sector has seen some relief in the last quarter after a new round of subsidies from local governments that encouraged consumers to trade in electronic goods.
Alibaba reported revenue of 122.22 billion yuan in its China e-commerce business, topping estimates of 119.85 billion yuan.
Total revenue came in at 243.38 billion yuan ($35.84 billion) for the quarter ended March 31, missing an LSEG consensus estimate of 247.22 billion yuan, as the company's international e-commerce business lagged.
($1 = 6.7904 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru and Casey Hall in Shanghai; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Arun Koyyur)
