{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "id": 1627356,
        "msgid": "mass-layoffs-and-plummeting-profits-e-commerce-giant-goes-all-in-on-ai-business-1774021875",
        "date": "2026-03-20 22:00:02",
        "title": "Mass Layoffs and Plummeting Profits, E-commerce Giant Goes All In on AI Business",
        "author": "",
        "source": "CNBC",
        "tags": "",
        "topic": "Business",
        "summary": "Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce behemoth, has slashed its workforce by approximately 34% in 2025, ending the year with 128,197 employees compared to 194,320 the previous year, amid the divestment of labour-intensive offline retail operations and a strategic pivot towards artificial intelligence. The company's profits tumbled 67% while revenues missed expectations, leading to a 6% drop in its Hong Kong-listed shares. CEO Eddie Wu announced ambitions to grow Alibaba's cloud and AI revenues beyond US$100 billion annually within five years, highlighted by the launch of the AI agent service Wukong and price hikes in cloud services.",
        "content": "<p>Mass layoffs have struck the major Chinese e-commerce company\nAlibaba. The number of Alibaba employees shrank by around 34% throughout\n2025. This occurred as Alibaba offloaded several of its offline retail\nbusinesses while ramping up investments in artificial intelligence (AI),\nciting CNBC.com, Friday (20\/3\/2026). Alibaba ended December with 128,197\nemployees, down from 194,320 the previous year, according to the\nfinancial report released on Thursday (19\/3\/2026). That report showed\nthe company\u2019s profits plunging 67% and its revenues missing\nexpectations. The company\u2019s shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange also\nfell 6% during Friday\u2019s trading (20\/3\/2026). Most of Alibaba\u2019s employee\nreductions happened in the first quarter of 2025 following the sale of\nthe Sun Art retail group at the end of 2024. The tech giant also\ndivested its ownership in the Intime department store chain around the\nsame period. Alibaba joins a number of other major technology companies\nthat have cut staff numbers over the past year, from Silicon Valley to\nHangzhou, China. Alibaba has been gradually reducing its headcount in\nrecent years, though the latest cuts are far larger than the 11%\nreduction in December 2024 from the prior year. This is happening as\nAlibaba seeks to offload labour-intensive holdings and restructure its\ncore business, with a primary focus on artificial intelligence. The\nChinese tech giant aims to become a full-fledged AI company encompassing\nsemiconductor manufacturing to computing and AI models. This week, the\ncompany launched an AI agent-based service known as Wukong for\nbusinesses and raised prices for its cloud and storage services by up to\n34% due to rising demand and supply chain costs. Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu\nstated during the earnings conference on Thursday that the company aims\nto boost its cloud and AI revenues to more than US$100 billion per year\nover the next five years.<\/p>",
        "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/mass-layoffs-and-plummeting-profits-e-commerce-giant-goes-all-in-on-ai-business-1774021875",
        "image": ""
    },
    "sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
    "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}