Even if Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Holdings raised a record-breaking amount of $25 billion in its initial public offering in New York in September, for Alibaba founder Jack Ma, the company needs to yield exceptional results for him to consider giving out hongbao or red envelopes on Wednesday, the Chinese Lunar New Year.

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Ma posted on Friday in his personal microblogging site the news that surely disappointed thousands of Alibaba workers. Explaining his decision, Ma wrote, "The success of becoming listed should not be a surprise as it was the result of all of Alibaba's employees' work over 15 years," quotes the Wall Street Journal.

The former teacher said he is not satisfied with Alibaba's 2014 performance to warrant giving out red packets.

In January, Alibaba posted weak revenue growth for the December quarter, partly due to changing consumer preference for mobile gadgets from personal computers.

The firm also grappled with a white paper from the regulator, pointing to Alibaba's failure to curb counterfeiting, but the regulator backtracked, an indication of the company's influence in China.

Ma points out to Alibaba employees that it is not as big and powerful as how the global community perceives it to be, and writes that it also grapples with problems that large companies face, while also dealing with frustrations similar to what smaller firms grapple with.

"There is a huge gap between the expectations that the outside world has for us and our actual capabilities," emphasized Ma.

But it wasn't totally bad news for Alibaba employees since Ma also said that the 13^th month bonus, usually equal to one month's pay, would be paid this month. An Alibaba spokesman underscored that distribution of the red packet is not mandatory, but discretionary.

TagsJack Ma, Alibaba IPO, Lunar New Year, hongbao