Alibaba's "China commerce retail" revenue, which covers its giant Taobao and Tmall marketplaces and still accounts for 73% of its revenue, grew 57% to RMB36.7 billion ($5.4 billion), a big improvement from the March quarter's 41% growth.

This growth was fueled by a 65% increase in revenue for "customer management" services for merchants (ads account for much of this business), and to a lesser extent a 28% increase in commission revenue (mostly from Tmall). While the annual active customer base for Taobao/Tmall only grew 7% annually to 466 million, annual revenue per active customer grew 35% to RMB273 ($41), thanks both to higher per-customer spend and Alibaba's very successful efforts to monetize its mobile apps and sites.