Alibaba was once a Wall Street darling. What’s next?

BEIJING — It’s been a tumultuous 12 months for Alibaba, casting doubt on the future of the tech giant just as artificial intelligence is taking off.

The company’s cloud computing unit was poised to capture AI’s growth for investors in a public listing, until Alibaba pulled those plans in November. The Group’s U.S. market value fell below that of e-commerce rival PDD, signaling struggles in the industry that had propelled Alibaba onto the global stage with the world’s largest IPO in 2014.

On the political front, Alibaba was a poster child for China’s crackdown on internet tech companies — receiving a record fine of $2.8 billion for alleged monopolistic behavior in 2021. Slowing economic growth hasn’t helped its business either.

But the scrapped cloud IPO plans and management shakeup in the last year reflect bigger problems for a company that has served as a bellwether for foreign investors in China. Alibaba’s stock has plunged to below $77 a share, down by 75% from more than $300 in 2020.

“I think there are some deep internal issues. And so there must now be … a clear internal fight between how they’re going to get out of this because they’re really slipping,” said Duncan Clark, an early advisor to Alibaba and now chairman of Beijing-based investment advisor BDA.

“The core to me is their eroding market position, what they are doing in terms of video, livestream and how they respond to Douyin, plus how they manage all these disparate groups and all the management turmoil,” Clark said. ”It’s a mess basically.”

Douyin, the domestic Chinese version of ByteDance’s TikTok, has taken off in China as a platform for the surging livestream sales industry. Chinese consumers, who are increasingly hunting for bargains, have also turned to bargain hunting on Pinduoduo.

Founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, Alibaba is a far older company than…