(Yicai Global) May 28 -- Alibaba Health Information Technology’s shares slumped as the Chinese online healthcare information and services provider said full-year revenue growth had slowed to double-digits for the first time in three years.

Revenue at the unit of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding rose 88.3 percent to CNY9.6 billion (USD1.3 billion) in the year ended March 31 from a year earlier, the Hong Kong-based company said yesterday. That compares with a more than eight-fold increase in fiscal 2017, a five-fold gain in 2018, and a doubling in 2019.

Its net loss narrowed 92 percent to CNY6.59 million (USD921,600), while its gross profit margin dropped to 23.3 percent from 26.1 percent a year earlier.

The company’s stock price [HKG:0241] fell almost 3.9 percent today to HKD17.38 (USD2.24), after earlier slumping as much as 8.4 percent. The benchmark Hang Seng Index fell 0.7 percent.

Alibaba Health, which focuses on medicine sales and web healthcare, was very proactive during the novel coronavirus outbreak. It promoted several online services including Covid-19 test bookings, doctor consultations and the dissemination of up-to-date information. That helped to bring the number of active users accessing its services through mobile payment platform Alipay to more than 390 million in the quarter, it said.

Annual gross merchandise volume on its e-commerce platform Tmall Healthcare exceeded CNY83.5 billion (USD11.7 billion) and the number of active users topped 190 million. The firm now directly operates more than 48 million online shops, not counting third-party stores, on Alibaba’s e-marketplace Tmall, it said. Alipay, run by sister firm Ant Financial Services Group, had penned contracts with over 15,000 healthcare institutions by the end of March.

For the final quarter ended March 31, Alibaba Health’s net loss narrowed 82.9 percent to CNY15.7 million (USD2.2 million).

Editor: Kim Taylor