The fourth quarter of 2021 saw a year-on-year increase of 33% to US$7.7 billion. Canalys predicts that by 2026, the scale of the cloud infrastructure market in the mainland will reach US$85 billion, and the five-year compound annual growth rate will be 25%.

Visit here for AI Cloud market share.

Alibaba Cloud remains the leader with a 37% market share, ranking first in the cloud market in 2021, Huawei Cloud and Tencent Cloud second and third respectively, and Baidu AI cloud fourth. In 2021, the four cloud providers jointly accounted for 80% of the market share.

Huawei Cloud reached an 18% market share in 2021, with an annual growth of 67%. The rapid growth has widened the gap between Huawei cloud and Tencent Cloud, ranking second in the market.

Tencent cloud, the third-largest provider, accounted for 16% of the market share, an increase of 55%. Tencent Cloud grew steadily as a whole in 2021, with diversified growth in multiple sectors.

Baidu AI Cloud, the fourth-largest vendor, accounted for 9% of the market share, an increase of 55%.

Top 10 forecasts for China cloud computing market 2021-2024

China’s Public Cloud Services Market to Grow to 10.5% of global share by 2024

In 2020, the overall market size of global public cloud services (IAAs/PAAS/SaaS) reached US$312.42 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 24.1%, according to IDC.

The overall market size of China’s public cloud services reached US$19.38 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 49.7%, with the highest growth rate in all regions of the world. IDC predicts that the global share of China’s public cloud service market will increase from 6.5% in 2020 to more than 10.5% by 2024.

Check out market share of IaaS and PaaS markets in China here.

CIW Subscribers (Annual) can download the chart here to see the comparison of the cloud platforms in China.

Download China Internet Overview whitepaper here.

Latest on China Cloud Computing Market

Alibaba Cloud remained the leading cloud service provider in Q4 2019, accounting for 46.4% of total spending. Tencent Cloud and Baidu AI Cloud both increased their shares to 18.0% and 8.8% respectively.

China’s top 3 accounted for 73% of the cloud infrastructure services by total spending in China in Q4 2019.

Read how some industries in China benefiting from the novel coronavirus outbreak

Alibaba Cloud offered credits to organizations to buy its Elastic Compute Service, cybersecurity and other services. It made its AI-powered platform available for free to research institutions to accelerate gene sequencing, protein screening and related work in treating and preventing coronavirus.

Tencent Cloud also made its platform available to research teams from universities across the country. It launched the Cloud Office Portfolio to support remote working, which includes Tencent Meeting and WeChat Work.

Baidu AI Cloud made its online doctor consultation platform free for any medical queries, which handled over 15 million interactions. And, it also opened its platform and AI algorithm for free to research institutions.

For full-year 2019, cloud infrastructure services spend in China increased by 63.7% to exceed US$10.7 billion.

Alibaba Cloud was the market leader, accounting for 46.1% of the market. Tencent Cloud was ranked second, with a 17.3% share. Amazon’s AWS was the third, followed by Baidu AI Cloud.

Coronavirus outbreak’s impact on China’s consumption

Amazon announced the results of China’s first Prime Day recently. Total number of orders on July 11 exceeded those on last year’s “black Friday.” Amazon China and Amazon overseas purchases and sales grew by almost 300% over last year, and the number of newly registered Prime users grew 60% over last year’s “Black Friday.”

Books, cosmetics, nursery, and toys were the most popular products during Prime Day. The Kindle Paperwhite e-book reader became Amazon China’s best-selling electronic device.

1. Sales amount: Sales during 2017 Prime Day grew 60% over that of 2016. The number of new Prime users globally reached a record, and the number of members participating in the 2017 Prime Day grew 50% over that of 2016.

2. Member discounts: Top sellers included Fisher Price sea horse dolls, Perrier natural spring soda water, Merries diapers, PHILIPS DiamondClean toothbrush heads, Human History and The History of the Future sets, and WMF pressure cookers.

3. Best-sellers: American Comotomo milk bottles, British New Era baseball caps, and Japanese Barrier Repair masks, all from overseas, were best sellers.

4. Fastest goods sold out: Among the many Prime member discounts, the fastest selling-out discounted products included Asics sports bras, Speedo swimming caps, BabyBjörn baby slings, and Penfolds Bin28 red wine.

5. Logistics: During the Prime Day peak, Amazon ensured that cross-border orders in 82 Chinese cities arrived in an average of 5 to 9 working days. The first batch of parcels for cross-border orders placed after 5 PM on June 10 had already arrived at the Amazon distribution site as of the early morning hours of the 14th, and were in the hands of customers that day.

6. Comparison with other shopping holidays: 2017 Amazon Prime Day surpassed “black Friday” and “Internet Monday” to become the highest grossing shopping holiday in Amazon’s history.

Highlights of Chinese sales

1. Wandeshi Technology: On Prime Day, DOSS brand sales reached 30 times those in a normal day in America. DOSS Touch Bluetooth speakers, which participated in a countdown promotion, sold out in an hour.

2. Liwei Electronics: During the 2017 Prime Day, Bluedio sales reached 100 times their volume for a normal day in America.

3. Ecovacs: Launched in August of last year, the Ecovacs online store participated in their first Prime Day promotion, reaching 80 times their sales in America on a normal day.

4. Kalamera Electronics: In the first three hours of Prime Day, sales of Kalamera wine cupboards reached 80% of last year’s sales for the whole day.

Vice President of Amazon Global and President of Amazon China Zhang Wenyi said, “Today is our first time to bring Amazon Prime Day to China, allowing Chinese Prime members to take part in an exclusive 46-hour ‘day-long’ shopping spree. The future will continue to bring more value-added services to Prime members.”

China’s online retail market totaled US$198.12 billion in the first quarter of 2017 with an increase of 27.6% YoY according to data from Analysis; B2C segment accounts for over 53%, led by Tmall (55.8%). Mobile continued its strong growth of 38.8% in China’s online shopping market, dominated by Tmall and Taobao (80.5%).

The total retail sales of consumer goods in China reached 8,582.3 billion yuan (US$1,245.89 bn) in Q1 2017 according to National Bureau of Statistics. Online retail market totaled 1,349.31 billion yuan (US$198.12 billion) with an increase of 27.6% YoY.

B2C Online Retail Market in Q1 2017

China’s online retail B2C market total transactions reached 720.94 billion yuan (US$105.86 bn) with an increase of 31.5% in Q1 2017, accounting for 53.4% of China’s online retail market.

Tmall remains its dominant position in China’s online retail B2C market with 55.8% market share in Q1 2017 by total transactions, followed by JD (26.7%) and Vipshop (3.4%).

Mobile Shopping Market in Q1 2017

The total transactions of China mobile shopping market reached 1,037.62 billion yuan (US$152.36 billion) with an increase of 38.8% YoY. The growth of mobile shopping in China is slowing down but the quarterly growth YoY is still over 30%.

Mobile accounts for 76.9% of total online shopping transactions in Q1 2017.

Tmall (including Taobao transactions) captured 80.5% of China’s mobile shopping market in Q1 2017, followed by JD (13.5%) and Vipshop (2%). Mobile GMV transacted on Alibaba China retail marketplaces was 2,981 billion yuan (US$433 billion), or 79% of total in Alibaba’s fiscal year 2017, an increase of 49% year-over-year.

In the first four months of 2017, the online retail sales of goods and services in China totaled 1,918.0 billion yuan (US$279.26 bn), an increase of 32.0% YoY.

In the first quarter of 2017, the total sales in China at Amazon’s overseas stores were 11 times as much as the same period two years ago.

Chinese consumers have purchased nearly 17 million pieces of cross-border directly delivered merchandise from Amazon since the official opening of cross-border direct delivery service since October 2014 according to Amazon China.

Currently, Amazon overseas stores offer Chinese consumers varieties of products from Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon Japan.

Amazon China provides its Prime members unlimited free delivery. Recently, it launched priority purchase for Prime members. Amazon currently offers over 6 million products to Prime members in China.

More and more Chinese sellers expand their global businesses through Amazon. Over 45,000 sellers are in Amazon Business since its recruitment activities among Chinese sellers at the end of 2016.

Alibaba cross-border B2C platform AliExpress reached 100M buyers

The total transactions of China’s online shopping market totaled 4.7 trillion yuan (US$680 bn) in 2016 with an increase of 23.9%; and, it’s estimated to reach 7.3 trillion yuan (US$1.06 trillion)  in 2019. Tmall dominates China’s B2C online shopping market with over 56% market share.

B2C online shopping market will grow to over 60% in 2019 from 55.3% in 2016 while C2C continues to shrink.

Mobile shopping begins to dominate China’s online shopping market and will grow to 5.6 trillion yuan; 76.9% of total online shopping transactions in 2019.

Tmall continued to lead China’s B2C online shopping market with 56.6% market share, followed by Jingdong (24.7%) and Suning (4.3%).

Mobile MAUs on Alibaba’s China retail marketplaces reached 493 million in December 2016 while annual active buyers on its China retail marketplaces reached 443 million, an increase of 4 million. It has 82.6% market share in China’s mobile shopping market according to iResearch.

Jingdong annual active customer accounts increased by 46% to 226.6 million in 2016 from 155.0 million in 2015. Net revenues for 2016 were RMB260.2 billion (US$37.5 billion), an increase of 44% from 2015.

Also read: China’s cross-border online shoppers to exceed 200 million by 2020

Alibaba is ranked the world’s second most valuable retail brand with a brand value of US$49.30 billion, according to WPP’s new 2016/2017 BrandZ Top 25 Most Valuable global Retail Brands ranking.

Amazon is ranked the most valuable global retail brand with a brand value of US$99 billion in 2016; its brand value has increased by 59% in 2016 compared to a year ago.

Alibaba’s main competitor in online retail JD.com brand value grew by 37% in 2016 and made it the 11th most valuable retail brand in the world.

Top 25 Most Valuable global Retail Brands 2016/2017 (USD; millions)

The top e-commerce platforms in China are JD, Tmall, and YHD in 2016. Find out the top 10  here.

The top e-commerce platforms in China are JD, Tmall, and YHD in 2016 according to Kantar Retail.

Top 10 e-commerce platforms in 2016 based on comments from more than 200 participants from FMCG manufacturers are:

1. JD
2. Tmall
3. YHD
4. vip.com
5. Amazon
6. Suning
7. Jumei
8. Xiaohongshu
9. sfbest.com
10. Feiniu

The top roles of of e-commerce according to Kantar survey:

1. Additional sales channel
2. Brand building
3. Stronger communication with consumer/shoppers
4. Penetrating lower-tier cities or markets
5. Additional profit
6. An efficient way to enter new brands / new products into the China market

Established in 2001 as a subsidiary in China, Amazon China once went through a nosediving period. By building and promoting cross-border shopping strategy, Amazon China has begun to make some initial success in 2015.

Amazon China’s total transactions during Black Friday increased by more than six times this year compared to 2014, and spends at Amazon overseas sites have been equivalent to the sum of the past 20 years counting only from January to October 2015 according to Amazon.

Mr. Douglas Gurr, who has been President of China Amazon.com Inc. since September 1, 2014, has been focusing on the business as a cross-border site as well as helping China’s brands gain global exposure summarized three reasons contributing to the fructified sales in 2015.

Small Ideas Hatching Big Business

Amazon had a well-established “reverse” mechanism or process at being innovative and creative. Faced with a new idea, they first answered two basic questions: What do consumers really need? Could Amazon develop a unique advantage from this business? Amazon picked out the most important ideas from thousands of new ideas and gradually improved.

This way of thinking helped select out some good ideas. AGS project of Amazon was born following the path. Based on worldwide suppliers and advanced cross-border logistics and distribution system, Amazon China provided consumers high-quality product selections and lower prices without suffering long delivery time, high shipping costs and fake goods.

Exploring China’s Innovative Products

Launchpad was a project providing a platform for excellent products and startups in China. The project could effectively help startups reach tens of millions of Amazon consumers worldwide and benefit consumers and innovators at last. Launchpad was operated during Black Friday shopping festival in 2014.

Own-branded Products Satisfying Chinese Demands

Fire tablet, which was recently released in China installing English-learning function to provide customized reading experience for different English levels of users, was a good trial at Amazon China. New Fire tablets with English-learning function was only marketed to China’s consumers.

The localization of innovations was solutions to the urgent needs of China’s consumers. Amazon has been striving to support suitable products for China’s market by deep insights into China’s consumers.

Also read: China Retail V.S. Online Shopping 2015

China’s cross-border shoppers reached 18 million and generated revenues of 140 billion yuan (US$21.75 billion) in 2014 according to China Electronic Commerce Research Center and China General Administration of Customs.

Transaction values of the cross-border market in China are expected to exceed 1 trillion yuan (US$0.16 trillion) in 2018 according to China Electronic Commerce Research Center with 36 million cross-border shoppers in 2018 according to Nielsen. It will account for 16% e-commerce market.

Amazon, as the largest global e-commerce company, is undoubtedly benefiting from the expansion and growing popularity of onine cross-border shopping market. The total expenditure of China’s consumers at Amazon Global sites increased by more than six times this year compared to 2014, and spends at Amazon overseas sites have been equivalent to the sum of the past 20 years counting only from January to October 2015.

80% cross-border consumers on Amazon were under the age of 35 according to Amazon. Over 90% users have Bachelor’s Degree or above. In addition, over half cross-border shoppers gained a monthly income of more than 5,000 yuan.

Cross-border shoppers in tier-3 and tier-4 cities grew faster than tier-1 and tier-2 cities during Black Friday becoming the fastest growing regions. However, the average consumption per shopper on Black Friday was less than 699 yuan (US$108.59) in 2015 according to Alipay.

Although on Double 11 Tmall sold out 2,605 cross-border products from 41 countries only in the first 10 minutes and surpassed last year’s cross-border transactions within 105 seconds, cross-border orders on Amazon were much fewer.

However, Amazon China launched its Black Friday promotion from November 18th lasting till December 5 2015, which was longer period than other e-commerce websites in China. Sales values on Black Friday were 10 times as much as its Double 11 ones this year.

The number of online cross-border shoppers on Black Friday 2015 increased by 7 times compared to last year according to Alipay. Sales in only half a day on Black Friday surpassed total one week’s sales during Black Friday in 2014. And page views on Amazon reached a record high on Black Friday with the number of new users as much as four times more than 2014.

Bags, shoes, and personal-care products have been the most popular categories of China’s cross-border shoppers on Amazon since 2014 while shoppers liked beauty makeups best on Taobao.

Beijing cross-border shoppers preferred air purifiers, vacuum cleaners, water purifiers and masks. Shanghai shoppers liked to buy infant formula. Hangzhou buyers liked Cartier products and Nanjing consumers preferred cross-border beauty products.

Price (84%) and quality (81%) were top two factors for China’s cross-border consumers, followed by logistics (57%). Very long delivery time would damage the enthusiasm of cross-border shoppers. Male users are most concerned about commodity prices while the female users during Black Friday are most concerned about whether the goods are authentic.

In recent years, the gradual improvement of cross-border e-commerce policies on customs, bonded warehouse, or a host of other policies has encouraged the cross-border business in China. Besides, online shopping platforms and cross-border shopping platforms have developed to a certain scale.

Also read: China Retail V.S. Online Shopping 2015

More and more overseas e-commerce websites providing the service of direct shipping to China appear. On the one hand, they can rapidly occupy the position in the Chinese market. On the other hand, they make customers enjoy more convenient shopping.

In the U.S., many large merchants that sell products covering general goods, fashion clothes, products for infant & mom and luxury enter the Chinese market in succession, and raise the tide of directly shipping to China. Let’s take a look at a list of foreign e-commerce websites that provide the cross-border shopping to online users in China.

Amazon

Amazon, founded in America in 1995 by Jeff Bezos, is a comprehensive e-commerce brand. It provides customers with the products such as books, music, movies, digital mobile phones, home appliances, home furnishing, toys, health, cosmetics, watches and jewelries, costumes and bags and suitcases, sports, food, products for infant & mom, outdoors and leisure products. Amazon also launches the products such as Kindle series, Fire TV and FirePhone. In addition, it provides the service of directly shipping to foreign countries from Germany, Japan, France, Britain and etc.

GMarket

Gmarket is the largest comprehensive shopping website in Korea. In Korea, it ranks first in gross sales in online retail market, and mainly sells books, MP3, cosmetics, computers, home appliances, and clothes and so on.

Sasa.com

It is the well-known Asian retailer from Hong Kong who sells skin care, makeup, perfume, cosmetics, body care and health care products and covers more than 100 world-renowned beauty brands.

imoda.com

It is the first Chinese language website that has provided direct shipping to China. All goods are directly mailed to Chinese customers by the overseas top buyer shop via Fedex and DHL, and arrive at the destination within 4~8 days. It only sells fashion goods, mainly including the first and second-line international brand clothes, shoes and bags; but it can provide the prices that can be greatly cheaper than those of the products in domestic shops.

ASOS

ASOS, founded in 2000, is a global online retailer providing fashion costumes and beauty products. ASOS owns brand from London designers and the world’s third-party brand provide fashion goods for young people.

Ashford

Ashford, founded in 1997, is headquartered in Broolyn, New York, America. It is a special top online mall providing fashion jewelries and fashion watches. It is one of the largest online watch vendors in America, and well known for low discounts and variety. In Ashford, you can find out the Swiss watch, the Japanese watch, and the American watch and high-end brand watches such as Mido, Hamilton, and Casio and so on.

Puritan’s Pride

Puritan’s Pride Healthy Food Company, founded in Long Island, New York, America in 1960, has 51-year-old history so far. It is one of the largest and most complete healthy product companies. It specializes in developing, producing and selling vitamins, minerals, herbs and healthy food related to health, beauty and weight lose and so on, and provides more than 1000 kinds of nutrition.

Puritan’s Pride has more than 6 million satisfied customers. People prefer to buy its healthy product due to its high quality and affordable price. Hot products include L-carnitine anti-aging series, apple acetic acid weight loss series, and disodium phosphate anticancer series and so on.

Macys.com

Macys.com, attached to the U.S. Federated Department Stores, Inc, is a high-end department store in America. It wins the good reputation due to high-quality products and service. Macys is called the world’s largest department store by many customers, and mainly sells various men’s and women’s clothing, children’s clothing, shoes, bags, beauty makeup, jewelries, household appliances, watch and its accessories and so on.

SkinStore

SkinStore is a top international cosmetics online shopping mall. SkinStore’s products mainly refer to beauty care, beautiful makeup, shampoo and hair care, bath, products for infant & mom, perfume and so on. It also provides service directly mailing to China without transport!

GiltGroupe

GiltGroupe luxury shopping website is a creative online shopping website, opens up the “flash purchase” in America; it provides the customers from all over the world with various popular products, most of which are sold with the internal price, as low as 60% off. Every day GiltGroupe provides members with various well-known brand products, which mainly includes women’s wear, men’s clothing, children’s clothes, household products and so on.

Allyouneed

Allyouneed is a famous comprehensive B2C website in Germany, and provides the products such as beverages, daily chemicals for infant & mom, domestic products for pets, household electronics, and even fresh fruits and vegetables, especially, momand papa who focus on overseas shopping can buy the hot Aptamil, Hipp, and Holle on this website. Moreover, they also can use coupons, and no other website can compare with this website.

LuisaViaRoma

LuisaViaRoma is the top luxury fashionable boutique brand shop in Italy. Its physical flagship store has been located in Rome Road, in the center of Florence since its foundation in 1930. LuisaViaRoma.com (LVR.com), founded in 1999, is its official online shopping mall and one of the luxury shopping websites of doing online fashion trade at the earliest.

SSense

Ssense is a Canadian website, and mainly sells costumes. It provides boutique costumes such as D&G, JuicyCouture, MissSixty, G-Star and Diesel, which are not luxury costumes and its pricing can be quite acceptable.

PayEasy

PayEasy is the largest female shopping website, and it has the commodities including beauty care, make-up, bags, accessories, fashionable costumes, digital 3C, and home furnishings and so on.

Continue to read Chinese Cross-border Online Shoppers Insights

According to Weibo’s daily influence index, Tmall, OKHQB, and Dangdang performed best on Weibo among 1,613 active Weibo accounts in B2C e-commerce category in 2014.

Also read: Travel Industry Performance on Weibo 2014

Amazon China announced the official launch of the direct shipping service and a Chinese website for Chinese shopping overseas.

From now on, Amazon US, Germany, Spain, France, UK and Italy, all provide direct shipping to China. Chinese consumers can select from these six overseas sites with over 80 million products in footwear, apparel, maternal and child health and nutrition, and personal care product categories.

More country sites and product categories will be made available to Chinese online shoppers.

Amazon overseas direct shipping can help consumers quickly deal with customs clearance procedures, and provide a standard, accelerated, and express delivery services.

In order to attract Chinese consumers, Amazon US site also sharply lowered its direct shipping charge to China and shortened delivery time to an average of 9 to 15 days; the fastest shipping takes only three working days. Some China internet users already observed the reduced shipping charge of some products at Amazon US store in September 2014.

According to Amazon, not all Chinese intenret users visiting Amazon China will see the “Oversea Shopping” store and it’s uncertain when Amazon will open this to all visitors. Amazon China announced a tripartite memorandum of understanding with China (Shanghai) Free Trade Zone (FTZ) and Shanghai Information Investment Co. in August 2014.

Amazon China is among China’s top online B2C platform though it has a small market share. Amazon will also launch its Double 11 campaign this year offering promotions of brands from over 300 countries.

Find out Top 30 B2C Platforms in China here or see a comparison of Amazon with Alibaba.

Some China internet users observed the shipping charge of some products at Amazon US store are reduced, which indicates Amazon’s efforts in cross-border e-commerce.

Amazon China announced a tripartite memorandum of understanding with China (Shanghai) Free Trade Zone (FTZ) and Shanghai Information Investment Co., Ltd, under which Amazon plans to build logistics and warehousing centers in the free trade zone.

Ebrun.com posted two screen captures showing the shipping cost to China from the US on Amazon US store of last month and this month respectively.

Ebrun.com also reports that AmazonGlobal Shoes Saver program (free shipping for purchase over $150) will also be available to Chinese online shoppers, which is not applicable to Singapore and Mexico: