Jack Ma-backed Ant’s profit fell 79% on AI, health care costs

[BEIJING] Ant Group’s quarterly profit continued to decline after the company increased investment in artificial intelligence technology for its health care, large language model and payment services. 

The fintech company contributed 375 million yuan (S$70.24 million) of profit to Alibaba Group Holding, which owns a third of Ant. That translates to an estimated 1.13 billion yuan in profit for the three months ended Dec 31, a 79 per cent decline from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Alibaba’s earnings report. 

Alibaba’s revenue rose 3 per cent for the three months ended March. Ant, whose results lag behind Alibaba’s by a quarter, did not respond to an emailed query. The fintech firm’s profit fell 91 per cent in the previous quarter. 

Ant, the operator of China’s ubiquitous financial services app Alipay, has been investing in AI to find new revenue streams following a regulatory crackdown that wrapped up about two years ago. The company has injected hundreds of millions of dollars in digital health care and built robots, while its global unit is expanding in cash management.

The company’s online loan business is likely to have posted moderate growth after Chinese regulators restricted its lending capacity, according to estimates by Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Francis Chan. 

Ant’s 50 per cent-owned consumer finance affiliate Chongqing Ant Consumer Finance has an estimated lending capacity of as much as 620 billion yuan, according to Bloomberg calculations. 

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The fintech firm’s Singapore-based international arm brought in US$3 billion of revenue for 2024, paving the way for a potential initial public offering of the unit. Revenue at the division grew about 25 per cent in 2025, people familiar with the matter have said. 

Ant last year showcased its first humanoid robot, which can provide medical consultation and perform basic kitchen tasks. It’s building out its health care app AQ, which served 140 million users as of September.

In 2023, an Ant share repurchase proposal valued the company at about US$79 billion, well below the US$280 billion valuation during its attempted IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong in late 2020. BLOOMBERG