URUMQI, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese internet giant Alibaba has been helping impoverished villages sell agricultural products over the past few years, with Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region a major beneficiary, according to the latest data released by Alibaba.

Data showed around 90-billion-yuan (13.6 billion U.S. dollars) of agricultural products from 832 poverty-stricken villages across the country were sold through its online platforms between 2015 and 2017.

In 2016, Alibaba's online retail platform Taobao and a Shanghai team assisting Xinjiang helped Xinjiang's Bachu County to improve the quality of a kind of local melons. Last year, 100,000 melons were sold online.

The average annual income of local melon farmers increased from 400 yuan to 3,500 yuan, according to the data.

During an online shopping spree in November 2017, more than 100,000 customers bought 850 tonnes of apples produced in Xinjiang's Aksu Prefecture within 12 hours.

Data shows that between July 2015 and June 2018, over 55 million consumers bought 1.5 billion items from hundreds of poor counties through Alibaba's online platforms.