Alibaba Group performed well in the second quarter of its fiscal year, with business-to-business international trade emerging as the main engine of growth.

Alibaba reported $33.7 billion in sales for its fiscal second quarter, which ended on September 30. With a net income of $6.32 billion, it is a 5% increase over the previous year.

Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu told investors that while cloud revenue, excluding their consolidated subsidiaries, climbed gradually with an increasing contribution from AI products; Alibaba's foreign digital commerce revenue growth remained strong. They have improved the performance of their loss-making enterprises across all sectors, increased operational efficiency, and fortified their monetization capabilities.

Taobao and Tmall, the two biggest online marketplaces in the world by gross merchandise value (GMV), are owned by Alibaba. According to Digital Commerce 360's list of the biggest online marketplaces by GMV, Taobao is ranked #1 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database. Tmall comes in at number two. Both platforms mainly cater to the Chinese market and are based in China. The international B2B marketplace Alibaba.com is one of Alibaba's others.

Alibaba International Digital Commerce (AIDC) had a 29% increase in revenue to $4.51 billion in the second quarter.

The company stated that the expansion of international companies, especially AliExpress' Choice program, was the main driver of this impressive achievement. Sites like Trendyol and AliExpress keep spending money to increase brand awareness in important regions in the Gulf and Europe. The Choice business's unit economics have improved sequentially as a result of their simultaneous enhancement in operational efficiency.

The business is still making significant investments in AI. Alibaba invested $20 million in Connectly, a company that develops AI-powered e-commerce apps that assist online retailers in creating customized digital marketing campaigns, in September. Businesses may automate consumer interactions across messaging applications with Connectly's technology.

In order to provide dependable, reasonably priced AI solutions for a variety of sectors, furthermore, Wu stated that they are dedicated to developing technology and maximizing operational effectiveness. Alibaba Cloud's cloud computing and AI-related goods will serve as the industry's backbone as AI adoption picks up speed. This plan sets them up for future success in global e-commerce.