The Zhitong Finance App learned that Shen Wan Hongyuan released a research report saying that the 26Q2 platform competition gradually returned to rationality from high-intensity investment, and that core business profit recovery and new business loss reduction jointly confirmed the industry's profit inflection point. Looking ahead, as subsidies tend to be restrained, the economic model of instant retail units continues to improve, and cross-border business shifts from scale expansion to localization and improvement in profit quality, the profit flexibility of the core business of leading platforms is expected to be further unleashed. At the same time, investment in AI infrastructure continues to increase, and Alibaba AI Cloud revenue and profit margins are rising at the same time. AI models are accelerating penetration into e-commerce search, marketing, customer service, supply chain, and smart shopping scenarios. Collaboration between AI and core commercial businesses is expected to open up new growth space.
Shen Wan Hongyuan's main views are as follows:
The growth rate of online consumption shows resilience, the platform's GMV growth rate is bottoming out and stabilizing, and competition is shifting to ecology and efficiency
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in January-July '26, the total retail sales of online goods and services reached 11.72 trillion yuan, up 4.8% year on year; retail sales of online goods and services reached 11.72 trillion yuan, up 4.8% year on year, of which retail sales of online products increased 4.6% year on year to 7.40 trillion yuan. Online channels are still an important support for driving consumption growth. 26Q2 was affected by high base and consumer market pressure. The GMV growth rate of traditional e-commerce platforms weakened month-on-month, but looking ahead to the second half of the year, as the high base effect subsides and AI tools accelerate penetration in both supply and demand, the platform's GMV growth rate is expected to recover steadily. The 618 promotion sends a positive signal of growth. By increasing subsidies, deepening AI applications, and optimizing the pace of operation, various platforms continue to stimulate users' consumption potential. The platform promotion competition is shifting from simple low prices to competition for subsidy efficiency, AI tools, and refined operation capabilities.
AI empowers e-commerce progress to accelerate, and the real-time retail competitive landscape is further optimized
Demand for AI is rapidly expanding, and leading Internet vendors continue to increase investment in infrastructure and model applications. According to Omdia, Alibaba Cloud, Volcano Engine, and Baidu Cloud led the Chinese AI cloud market with a share of 38.1%/20.4%/9.4% respectively in China's AI cloud market in 2025, and competition for the top positions is still fierce. Major Internet companies are rapidly iterating on AI, and the focus of competition is shifting to scene penetration, ecological collaboration and commercialization. Among them, the Qianwen App was fully connected to Taobao and Tmall e-commerce services on May 7. As of June '26, MAU was 167 million, and the opening up of AI entry and consumption scenarios was accelerated. On the pricing side, there has been a systematic shift between large domestic models and AI infrastructure pricing logic, and the business focus of manufacturers has changed from exchanging price for volume to competition between training investment, model power, and computing power returns. After the peak of competitiveness in the retail industry, the pattern stabilized, and platform competition shifted to efficiency optimization and ecological collaboration. As of June '26, Taobao Flash Sale/Meituan Takeaway/JD Takeaway MAU reached 7338/5621/2.96 million respectively. The Taobao and Meituan Food Takeaway market patterns stabilized, and platform-related sales contracted significantly.
Cross-border e-commerce competition logic is being restructured at an accelerated pace, and AI and localization have become the new core capabilities of the platform to go overseas
New EU regulations on tariffs and handling fees for low-value packages have been implemented. The cost advantage of the traditional “domestic collection+cross-border direct mail” model has narrowed markedly, and leading platforms have accelerated the migration to overseas warehouses, local delivery, local suppliers and offline O2O channels. Temu switched from full hosting to semi-hosting and local trade. AliExpress achieved operating profits through logistics optimization and local supply improvement, and SHEIN and Joybuy continued to improve the European local warehousing and distribution network. At the same time, AI is expanding from product selection, marketing, and customer service to logistics, compliance, and agent commerce, and the competitive focus of cross-border platforms is further shifting from low price traffic to supply chain resilience, contract fulfillment efficiency, profit quality, and intelligent operation capabilities.
The growth rate of the main business on the revenue side was divided, AI cloud and instant retail became the main increments, and the trend of profit-side core business repair was further confirmed
26Q2 Ali/Pinduoduo/Meituan achieved revenue of 2690/3464/1124/104.6 billion yuan respectively, +8.6%/+8.0%/+13.9% year-on-year. Ali's instant retail revenue increased 45% year over year, AI cloud and computing power service revenue increased 45% year over year to 48.4 billion yuan. Adjusted EBITA increased 133% year over year and profit margin rose to 11.6%; Pinduoduo trading services maintained double digit growth; and Meituan's core local commercial revenue increased 10.1% year over year. On the profit side, Meituan's core local commercial operating profit changed from loss in the first quarter to profit of 5.67 billion yuan. Alibaba e-commerce's core profit remained resilient, and the industry's business focus was shifting from large-scale investment to efficiency and return.
Risk warning: Consumer spending falls short of expectations, industry competition intensifies, new business development falls short of expectations, subsidy investment exceeds expectations