E-commerce and AI giant Alibaba Group Holding on Wednesday disclosed quarterly revenue of AI-related products for the first time, reporting that the segment has registered triple-digit growth for an eleventh consecutive quarter. The surge helped bolster a 3 per cent overall revenue increase that was largely in line with market expectations.

AI-related product revenue hit 8.97 billion yuan (US$1.32 billion), the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange, as the segment continues to show strong momentum.

Total revenue from the Hangzhou-based company reached 243.4 billion yuan (US$35.3 billion) in the three months ended March 31, compared with the Bloomberg consensus estimate of 246.5 billion yuan. The performance marked a modest acceleration from the 2 per cent growth seen in the previous quarter.

The cloud-computing unit continues to serve as a bright spot, posting 38 per cent year-on-year revenue growth to 41.6 billion yuan, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth for the unit.

“Alibaba’s full-stack AI investments have progressed from incubation to commercialisation at scale,” said Eddie Wu Yongming, CEO of Alibaba Group, which owns the South China Morning Post. “This quarter, we achieved accelerated breakthroughs across models, cloud infrastructure and applications.”

Cloud Intelligence Group’s external revenue growth accelerated to 40 per cent, with AI-related products accounting for 30 per cent of this revenue, Wu added.

“We are confident in our business outlook and will continue to invest in AI plus cloud to strengthen our competitive advantages,” said Toby Xu, chief financial officer of Alibaba Group.