Alibaba and NetEase Share Prices Tumble as Q4 Earnings Disappoint Wall Street

Price wars and geopolitical concerns have clouded the growth picture for the industry, and on Friday (Feb. 24), when more firms reported profits, China's technology companies took a battering.
After reporting a loss, shares of NetEase Inc. plunged as much as 11%, and shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. dropped as much as 4.8%, as analysts remained wary of its sales growth potential. With a maximum drop of 2.6%, the Hang Seng Tech Index is now down 16% from its January high. Although the IT industry has recovered somewhat from the regulatory crackdowns that have plagued it in recent years, there is growing fear that escalating pricing wars and new rounds of cash burn may further harm revenues while the robustness of the country's economic recovery is still in question.

However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated on Thursday that China's leadership likely approved of Chinese enterprises offering Russia non-lethal, "dual-use" support for its conflict in Ukraine. According to Bank of America's senior China equities strategist, "Beta-flow-driven sector, more top-down-driven by geopolitics, global positioning, and traded as a China proxy rather than too much of a bottom-up," best describes the current state of China's internet.

Other technology companies will be putting their mettle to the test next week when they report their results, and it remains to be seen if they can compete. On Monday, Li Auto Inc. is slated to report, and on Tuesday, Weibo Corp., Nio Inc., and Bilibili Inc. will also report.
Zhang Hao, a fund manager at Granford (Beijing) Capital Management Co., said, "Although results are not all awful, there are still lots of dangers—the degree of transparency for IT businesses listed is still scarce, given the mid-to long-term threat to fundamentals with pricing wars."