The Chinese e-commerce market will be worth CNY19.6 trillion ($3.0 trillion) by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 12.4% over the coming years, new data from GlobalData has revealed.
According to GlobalData’s E-Commerce Analytics, e-commerce sales in China are expected to register a robust growth of 17.2% in 2021, with consumers increasingly shifting from offline to online due the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Chinese e-commerce evolved rapidly over the last five years, supported by high Internet and smartphone penetration, increasing consumer confidence in online shopping, emergence of e-commerce platforms, and the availability of alternative payment solutions such as Alipay and WeChat Pay," commented Nikhil Reddy, banking and payments analyst at GlobalData.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated this trend as consumers are increasingly using online channel for their purchases.”
Online Outpaces Retail
According to data from China's National Bureau of Statistics, total retail sales of consumer goods declined by 3.9% in 2020, however online retail sales of physical goods increased by 14.8% during the same period, driven by the adoption of alternative payment solutions such as Alipay and WeChat Pay.
“Chinese e-commerce market has been on the rise during the last five years," Reddy added. "The uptrend is likely to continue over the next few years driven by the growing consumer preference, and the emergence of new online payment methods.”
Chinese online marketplace Alibaba said in February that sales in the final quarter of 2020 rose by 37%, helped by both the the Singles Day event in November and the COVID-19 pandemic.
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