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Alibaba's founder, Jack Ma, at a conference in Nanjing, China, this week.Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

HONG KONG — A year ago, executives of the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba were preparing a roadshow that paved the way for one of the biggest initial public offerings of stock in history.

Since then, the company’s situation has changed drastically. Alibaba is now grappling with an economic slowdown in China, which has been made more volatile by the devaluation this week of the country’s currency. The company’s new chief executive, Daniel Zhang, is seeking ways to bolster growth, such as courting international brands it believes will sell well to middle-class Chinese consumers. At the same time, Alibaba is pushing to make its services more accessible to people in underserved rural regions, who are likely to become China’s next several hundred million Internet users.

Investors who bought into Alibaba’s growth promise during the roadshow are also more skeptical — and less forgiving of any stumbles, especially as turbulence in China’s stock market spreads to Chinese companies listed in the United States. Before Wednesday, Alibaba, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, had fallen about 35 percent from its November 2014 highs and it was just 14 percent above the I.P.O. price of $68.

Reaction on Wall Street

Alibaba’s precarious position compared with a year ago was highlighted on Wednesday when the company reported its latest earnings. While revenue rose 28 percent, that was less than investors had anticipated. In response, the company’s stock tumbled more than 5 percent.

Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, has said he is focused on the long term rather than on short-term stock movements. But in a move to shore up the share price, the company said on Wednesday that it would authorize a $4 billion share buyback program over two years. The program is intended to help offset dilution of shares from employee compensation tied to stock.

And to signal confidence in the company, Alibaba’s executive vice chairman, Joseph Tsai, said neither he nor Mr. Ma would sell their Alibaba shares. Their first opportunity to do so is next month.

“I usually don’t speak on behalf of Jack, but on this one he’s authorized me to talk on his behalf,” Mr. Tsai said. “Jack and I have zero intentions to sell other than a small amount that is in our charitable trusts.”

Mr. Tsai said Alibaba shares that are owned by Yahoo and SoftBank, which invested in the company years ago when it was privately held, will also “unlock” next month. Yahoo announced its intention to spin off its Alibaba stock in January, and those shares have lost more than $11 billion in value since then.

Alibaba’s swings illustrate the up-and-down nature of the hype cycle that technology companies often undergo. When Alibaba executives pitched the company to international investors last year, they said its future success relied on three engines of growth: growing numbers of Chinese Internet users, a boom in online shopping and a fast-growing Chinese economy.

Yet Alibaba has since faced setbacks on each front, such as a slowing growth rate in the number of Chinese Internet users, rising online competition and the bumpy domestic economy. At the same time, several prominent strategic investments and acquisitions have yet to spur growth.

In June, Alibaba warned analysts that a government ban on selling online lottery tickets and a decrease in fees for its group-buying marketplace would affect earnings. Its share price on Wednesday was also hurt by the Chinese central bank’s moves to weaken the renminbi.

“I think most of the disappointment is from the monetization rate, which dropped after the I.P.O.,” said Elinor Leung, an analyst at the brokerage and investment group CLSA, referring to the amount the company makes from each user of its services. “The reasons for the monetization drop are temporary and don’t change the fundamentals of the business.”

In its earnings statement on Wednesday, Alibaba said that in the quarter that ended June 30, revenue rose to $3.27 billion. Net income that excluded investment gains, which does not meet generally accepted accounting principles, was $1.5 billion, in line with analysts’ expectations.

Alibaba’s core business remains strong, analysts said, and there are signs that better growth lies ahead. The company has made a series of moves, including appointing Mr. Zhang chief executive in May and later tapping a new president in charge of international expansion, the former Goldman Sachs executive Michael Evans.

The hiring of Mr. Evans followed accords with 20 global clothing brands, whose products Alibaba agreed to begin selling on its e-commerce sites. The hope is that the new exposure will connect foreign companies with middle-class and newly wealthy Chinese looking for the status and quality of foreign products.

The company on Wednesday also pointed to signs it was becoming better at making money from smartphones. Alibaba said mobile revenue for its online marketplaces was $1.3 billion, accounting for 51 percent of its retail marketplace revenue in the quarter.

Despite the progress, its largest rival, Tencent, still has more users on its banner mobile app, WeChat. The app, which also has an array of online shopping features, has 600 million monthly average users, compared with the 307 million users Alibaba said it had at the end of June

During the earnings call, Mr. Zhang said that along with bringing brands into China, the company would continue trying to help small Chinese businesses sell across the globe.

“We have a very clear international strategy, and this is a core strategy for the coming decades,” he said.

Alibaba also invested in its growth push into China’s rural areas this week when it agreed to spend $4.6 billion — the most the company has spent on a strategic investment — for a 20 percent stake in the Chinese retailer Suning. Suning has a logistics and retail store network that covers China’s many remote and less-developed areas, where those least likely to shop online live and work.

Chi Tsang, an analyst at HSBC, said that while Alibaba’s investment in Suning might alienate other retailers, the combination of Alibaba’s online skills and Suning’s rural presence would be “very powerful.”

He also said Mr. Zhang’s appointment seemed to have pleased the company’s employees.

“My sense is the rank and file really like Daniel Zhang,” he said. “He hits a high bar, and it’s a good transition.”