China Anti-Monopoly Law Spurs Fines Against Alibaba, JD.com, Others
Several Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Baidu and JD.com will have $78,000 in fines levied against them stemming from 43 acquisitions that were said to breach the country’s anti-monopoly regulations, according to a Reuters report.
The transactions, which were all said to be unreported, date as far back as 2012, according to the report.
Tencent and Baidu earlier this year were each fined 500,000 yuan (about $78,000) for previous acquisitions and investments.
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Last year, Ant Group postponed its initial public offering (IPO), ultimately slashing the company’s valuation in half, after Chinese regulators — concerned about fervent investor interest — stepped in to suspend the company’s IPO
See more: Ant Group’s IPO Woes Could Slash Valuation in Half to $140B
Meanwhile, eCommerce giant Alibaba, despite having double-digit year-over-year increases, said its 29% boost marked its slowest growth rate in six quarters.
The company said during last week’s earnings call that it anticipated its annual revenue to increase slower than any time since its stock market introduction in 2014.
Growing competition played a role in the slowed growth, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said during the earnings call.
Even with the slower growth, Alibaba is reaching sizable milestones. This week, the company reported that its active consumers surpassed 1 billion, fueled by a quarterly surge of about 62 million. The company has 953 million customers in China and 285 million overseas, marking a quarterly net growth of 41 million and 20 million, respectively.
See more: Alibaba Group Active Consumers up 62M in Q3
China’s clampdown on tech giants and tougher regulations are partly to blame for a lackluster Singles Day in China earlier this month.
Read more: JD.com, Alibaba Sales Not Enough to Boost China’s Sluggish Singles Day
The world’s largest multi-day shopping extravaganza usually nets more sales that Black Friday and Cyber Monday together. Yet, this year’s 11-day shopping event saw overall merchant growth in the single digits, as compared to double-digits increases previously.
JD.com and Alibaba meanwhile had historic online sales during the event, which began in 2009 as a reason to celebrate being single.