Alibaba Group Holding vs. Dick’s Sporting Goods: Revenue Trends Between Online and Brick-and-Mortar Giants
Alibaba Group Holding: Steady Revenue Scale
Alibaba Group Holding (BABA -1.04%) primarily generates revenue by operating extensive digital commerce marketplaces and providing cloud computing infrastructure.
BABA – Alibaba Group
$100.44-$1.06 (-1.04%)
NYSE · As of 1:58 PM ET 11/03/26
It introduced new processors and detailed long-term artificial intelligence development plans at an annual technology conference, while it faced a securities fraud class action lawsuit regarding past disclosures.
Dick’s Sporting Goods: Recent Year-Over-Year Increases
Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS -3.82%) primarily operates omnichannel retail stores selling athletic apparel, specialty footwear, and outdoor sports equipment.
DKS – Dick’s Sporting Goods
$136.81-$5.43 (-3.82%)
NYSE · As of 2:01 PM ET 11/03/26
It announced plans to hire thousands of seasonal employees for the upcoming holiday period, and its executives faced a securities class action lawsuit over earlier statements about inventory health.
Why Revenue Matters for Investors
Revenue here refers to the data provider’s standardized income-statement revenue line item, and it shows the top-line money generated before any business expenses are deducted.
Alibaba Group Holding vs. Dick’s Sporting Goods Revenue over the last 8 quarters. Figures: Alibaba Group Holding shown in U.S. dollars, converted from Chinese yuan.
Quarterly Revenue for Both Companies
Calendar quarterAlibaba Group Holding RevenueDICK’S Sporting Goods RevenueQ3 2024$33.0 billion (quarter ended Sept. 30, 2024)$3.1 billion (quarter ended Nov. 2, 2024)Q4 2024$38.9 billion (quarter ended Dec. 31, 2024)$3.9 billion (quarter ended Feb. 1, 2025)Q1 2025$32.5 billion (quarter ended March 31, 2025)$3.2 billion (quarter ended May 3, 2025)Q2 2025$34.2 billion (quarter ended June 30, 2025)$3.6 billion (quarter ended Aug. 2, 2025)Q3 2025$34.6 billion (quarter ended Sept. 30, 2025)$4.2 billion (quarter ended Nov. 1, 2025)Q4 2025$40.2 billion (quarter ended Dec. 31, 2025)$6.2 billion (quarter ended Jan. 31, 2026)Q1 2026$35.1 billion (quarter ended March 31, 2026)$5.2 billion (quarter ended May 2, 2026)Q2 2026$39.4 billion (quarter ended June 30, 2026)$5.6 billion (quarter ended Aug. 1, 2026)
Foolish Take
Normally, the first thing to note when examining a company’s revenue trend is seasonality: some times of the year have stronger buying patterns than others. For most stocks, compare revenue year over year, by quarter. Retailers generally are known for having strong seasonality. This especially comes in the fourth quarter for U.S. retailers and in the fourth quarter and early weeks of the first quarter for Asia retailers.
Dick’s Sporting Goods also should show some seasonality around summertime, when ball sports and camping are of high interest to consumers. Alibaba similarly has seasonality in the same periods, due to various holidays and events in the fourth quarter, like Singles’ Day, and China’s 618 shopping festival that occurs in June.
Understanding seasonality makes the trend of both retailers here less volatile than the chart shows. Both are showing year-over-year growth in comparable quarters–so Dick’s first quarter 2026 shows revenue growth from the first quarter 2025. Similarly, Alibaba’s fourth quarter shows a very slight rise on the graph. It is worth noting that the conversion of Alibaba’s reporting currency of yuan to U.S. dollars could exacerbate or de-emphasize growth and seasonality for the company based on the trend of exchange rates (although China largely keeps its currency in lockstep with the U.S. dollar for various reasons).
In Alibaba’s case, the company is making a significant effort to move further into AI services, which would mean less reliance on retail goods sales. In the future, it’s possible the company could have far less seasonality–at least until seasonality is discovered in the AI business.
Revenue is perhaps the simplest metric investors have to judge a business by. As the chart shows, look for rising revenue, especially over similar periods of each year, and take comparable-quarter stagnation, or worse, declines, as a red flag.
Data source: Financial Modeling Prep. Alibaba Group Holding’s figures are converted from Chinese yuan to U.S. dollars. Data as of Nov. 2, 2026.
Source: www.fool.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.