http://seekingalpha.com/news/...tors-balance-margin-drop-mobile-gainsThough it beat FQ2 revenue estimates and posted in-line EPS, Alibaba (BABA +0.6%) reported an 890 bps drop in non-GAAP EBITDA margin to 50.5%. On the CC (live blog), the company attributed the drop to higher marketing spend, mobile OS (YunOS) investments, and the costs of integrating newly-acquired businesses.
Not counting stock compensation expenses - thanks partly to the IPO, they rose to 17.9% of revenue from 7.9% a year ago - costs/expenses rose to 52.7% of revenue from 43.4% a year ago. Alibaba notes it increased its "tactical advertising and promotional spending" for its Chinese retail marketplaces.
Those marketplaces performed well: GMV for Alibaba's Taobao marketplace (focused on smaller merchants) rose 38% Y/Y to RMB380B, and GMV for Tmall (focused on larger merchants) rose 78% to RMB176B.
Also encouraging: Mobile monetization rate jumped to 1.87% in FQ2 from 1.49% in FQ1 and 0.61% a year ago. That allowed total monetization rate to fall just 1 bps Y/Y to 2.30%, in spite of a mix shift towards mobile (now 35.8% of GMV and 29.1% of revenue).
Total China commerce revenue rose 47% Y/Y to RMB13.56B, and international commerce revenue (much of it from Alibaba.com and AliExpress) 38% to RMB1.62B. Wholesale business accounted for 74% of international revenue, but just 6% of China revenue.
CFO Maggie Wu says it's Alibaba's policy to not give out guidance.