(Reuters) -China’s Alibaba missed market estimates for quarterly revenue on Friday as the company’s e-commerce business grapples with tough competition and choppy consumer demand, eclipsing gains in its cloud computing business.

U.S.-listed shares of the company fell 1.5% in premarket trading.

Consumer confidence in China has taken a beating from persistent weakness, with the economy weighed down by a lingering property sector crisis, weak wage growth and global trade disruptions.

Consumers remain cautious, even as e-commerce companies resorted to steep discounts and price cuts to drum up demand.

That eclipsed strong growth in Alibaba’s cloud segment, where revenue surged 26% to 33.40 billion yuan, accelerating from the 18% growth seen in the prior quarter. Analysts were expecting an 1

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