Recruiting in China

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding's second-quarter revenue growth is likely to have slumped to half the year-earlier rate, undermining hopes consumer spending will temper a slowdown in the world's second-biggest economy.

China is hoping that private consumption will pick up the slack as exports fall and it tries to rebalance the economy - now heading for its slowest full-year growth in 25 years - away from a reliance on trade and government spending.

But Alibaba's second-quarter results due on Tuesday are expected to cloud the increasingly grim outlook for consumer spending, which accounted for 60 percent of China's economic growth in the first half of 2015.

"Much focus will be paid to the deceleration in volume growth Alibaba guided to mid-quarter. Investors will be looking to see if Alibaba can improve take rates to make up for this slowdown," Wedbush Securities analyst Gil Luria said.

Lackluster data from the firm behind China's biggest and most successful e-commerce platforms could provide fresh fodder for bears predicting China is heading for a much harder economic landing than the official figures would suggest.

Having warned in September of slower-than-expected sales, Alibaba's revenue in the three months through September is expected to be 21.3 billion yuan ($3.35 billion), according to Thomson Reuters data analyzing forecasts from 28 analysts.

That would represent an increase of 26.7 percent from the same quarter last year, when year-on-year growth was a sizzling 53.7 percent.

In the April - June quarter, revenue and gross merchandise volume - the total value of goods transacted across Alibaba's platforms - both eased to their slowest rates in more than three years.

To be sure, government data shows retail sales have continued to grow above 10 percent so far this year, even as GDP growth has slowed to 6.9 percent in the third quarter.

But a China consumer confidence index produced by ANZ Bank and polling company Roy Morgan fell to a record low in August, and research firm Gartner said smartphone sales recorded their first fall in the Chinese mainland in the second quarter.