Marina Lyubimova
⬤ Alibaba's cloud unit has staged one of the more compelling turnarounds in the sector. The business went from a 3% year-over-year decline in Q1 2023 to 36% growth by Q4 2025, making it one of the clearest recovery stories within the broader BABA narrative. Seven consecutive quarters of accelerating growth is a rare pattern that points to structural, not cyclical, demand improvement.
⬤ The progression is hard to ignore. After bottoming at -3% in Q1 2023, the cloud unit returned to modest growth and slowly built momentum: 4% in Q2 2023, followed by 2%, 3%, and then holding at 3% through Q1 2024. Acceleration picked up from Q2 2024 onward, hitting 6%, 7%, and 13% by year-end. Then 2025 pushed the numbers into a different category entirely, with Alibaba Cloud printing 18%, 26%, 34%, and finally 36% across the four quarters.
⬤ The cloud segment carries strategic weight well beyond its revenue line. A steady climb from single-digit gains to mid-30% growth signals a demand environment that looks fundamentally different from two years ago. The consistency across seven quarters rules out a one-period anomaly and helps explain why Alibaba Cloud is attracting renewed attention from investors reassessing the BABA growth story.
⬤ For market participants, sustained acceleration of this kind can shift how a company is priced. If cloud remains the dominant growth engine, it could increasingly anchor sentiment around BABA. But the pace also raises expectations: maintaining 30%-plus growth becomes harder as the comparison base rises, and any deceleration will be measured against a very high bar set over the past two years.
Marina Lyubimova
