China’s tech sector is taking a hit. Revenue for e-commerce giant Alibaba posted what appears to be its most sluggish quarterly increase ever, at 9 percent, with competitor JD.com also paced among its worst performances, with revenue up 18 percent for Q1. The nation’s search engine leader, Baidu, reported 1 percent revenue growth, while Tencent remained flat. Supply chain problems due to the COVID-19 resurgence in conjunction with Beijing’s recent measures to battle back monopolies are cited as causes for the negative market turn. Since late 2020, China has been investigating alleged monopolistic practices among many top corporations.

In April Alibaba was fined $2.8 billion for what regulators said was anticompetitive behavior, writes U.S. News. Tencent, Baidu, SoftBank and ByteDance were among those who were previously fined, according to CNBC.

“China’s already sluggish retail sales fell further in April, down 11.1 percent from a year ago. Even online sales of physical goods fell, down by 1 percent — worse than during the initial shock of the pandemic in 2020,” per CNBC, which said it analyzed official data accessed through Shanghai-based financial data firm Wind Information.

Despite all that, Alibaba shares managed to rally by nearly 15 percent last week in New York Stock Exchange trading after announcing Q4 and full year earnings that while lackluster, were better than expected. JD.com’s Nasdaq-listed shares rose 5 percent, while on the Hong Kong exchange Tencent on Friday climbed more than 1 percent.

“Macro-sensitive stocks such as Alibaba and Baidu might temporarily benefit from low earnings expectations, and anticipation that Shanghai is close to ending its lockdown,” CNBC wrote, citing a note from Nomura analysts Jialong Shi and Thomas Shen, who wrote that “the sustainability of this rally will likely be dictated by the pace of recovery for China consumer demand, which the market will likely closely follow over the coming months.”

Listed among “bright spots” was Baidu, showing “solid progress in its various AI initiatives” and cloud revenue grew by 45 percent in Q1, year-over-year, according to a Daiwa Capital Markets analysis reported on CNBC. The JD-owned grocery delivery service Dada was another top-performer, posting a 21 percent increase for the period ended March 31. Kuaishou, which offers short-videos, live streaming and e-commerce, “had 19 percent revenue growth in the latest quarter,” CNBC said.