Can China’s tech giants do without consumers?

EARNINGS reports from Chinese tech companies, recently released, should be a wake-up call for Beijing.

Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com pulled out all the stops to attract customers to spend during their 618 shopping festival, a Black Friday-like extravaganza that took place during the quarter ending in June. They offered steeper-than-ever discounts on everything from iPhones to loungewear, enlisted A-list celebrities like Rihanna to promote products, and even experimented with a digital avatar of an executive to hawk goods over livestream.

But Alibaba’s revenue from its core e-commerce platforms fell by some 1.4 per cent, and retail revenue at JD.com, which offered some of the most cut-throat markdowns, ticked up by 1.5 per cent.