Alibaba reports slower revenue growth

China's biggest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. on Wednesday posted Q2 revenue growth of 28 percent to reach 20.2 billion yuan (3.2 billion U.S. dollars).

This represents a slow down in growth from 40 percent in Q4 of last year, and 45 percent in Q1 of this year.

The slower revenue growth came as a slowing economy dragged down consumer spending in the world's second-largest economy.

The Hangzhou-based company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in September last year. Wednesday's data disappointed investors and shares in Alibaba had fallen 6.70 percent to 72.16 U.S. dollars by 11:31 a.m. local time. This is slightly higher than its IPO price of 68 U.S. dollars, but far below its all time high of 120 U.S. dollars.

Its net income jumped 148 percent to 30.8 billion yuan, boosted largely by the sharp rise in the share price of its subsidiary Alibaba Pictures.

Alibaba's China retail marketplaces reached 673 billion yuan in the second quarter, up 34 percent year on year.

Growth of the company's cloud computing and Internet infrastructure business accelerated, with revenue increasing 106 percent year on year to 485 million yuan in Q2.

Alibaba also announced on Wednesday that it would buy back shares worth up to 4 billion U.S. dollars over the next two years. Endi