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.

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

The monthly active users of China mobile internet exceeded one billion units devices in 2016 according to QuestMobile.

Android active devices exceeded 746 million units in December 2016 from 620 million in Jan 2016 while iOS ones dropped from 286 mn in Jan 2016 to 276 mn in Dec 2016.

66 mobile apps in China each has over 50 million monthly active users in Dec 2016; 146 apps bewteen 10 million and 50 million.

Both Android and iOS apps have increased total monthly usage time in Dec 2016, with an increase of 34% and 20% respectively YoY.

Each age group has increased app usage duration per device over the past two years.

WeChat active users reached 856.39 million in Dec 2016, an increase of 23% YoY ranking the number one app by total number of active users. The next apps in the top ten include QQ, Taobao, Alipay, Tencent Video, iQiyi, Baidu Mobile, Weibo, and Sogou Input.

WeChat also ranks first by DAU/MAU ratio (76%), followed by QQ (57.6%), Sogou Input (52.2%), Baidu Input (50.5%), and 360 Mobile Security (42.6%).

A WeChat user has the highest average monthly usage duration (1,967 minutes), followed by Toutiao (news app; 955 mins), QQ (865 mins), Netease News (636 mins), UC Browser (610 mins), etc.

Tencent Video was the most downloaded app in Dec 2016 (6.19 million downloads), followed by Alipay (5.86 mn), QQ (5.72 mn) and WeChat (5.44 mn).

Tencent Video, iQiyi, and Youku are the top 3 online video apps by total MAUs in China in 2016.

Weibo was ranked the top social networking mobile app in 2016 by QuestMobile with over 341 million MAUs, followed by QZone (92m) and Momo (70m).

Top mobile shopping apps last year in China by total MAUs include Taobao (430.7m), Jingdong (152.7m), VIPShop (59.1m), Tmall (49.3m), Suning (28.9m), and etc.

Top 15 airlines and hotels apps are all local apps except Booking (9th) and Airbnb (14th).

In app stores category, Tencent’s Yingyongbao ranks on top with over 184 million MAUs, followed by Baidu Mobile Assistant (161m), 360 Mobile Assistant (113m), Xiaomi App Store (91.5m), Huawei App Store (87.8m), OPPO Software Store (75.6m), Vivo App Store (53.5m), and etc.

Total transaction value of China online shopping market reached 1.15 trillion yuan (US$166.85 billion) in Q3 2016, up 23.6% YoY or 2.6% QoQ, according to data from iResearch.

B2C (600 billion yuan) accounted for 55.1% of China online shopping market in Q3 2016, led by Tmall (56.2%), Jingdong (25.1%), Suning (4.4%), and VIPshop (3.2%).

The total transactions of China mobile shopping market reached 820.15 billion yuan (US$), an increase of 56.1% YoY. Mobile accounted for 71.6% of China’s online shopping market, led by Tmall/Taobao with 82.7% market share.

China’s mobile internet market reached RMB 197.22 billion (USD 29 billion) in Q2 2016, an increase of 113% YoY or 22.7% QoQ according to iResearch.

Mobile shopping accounted for 62.9% of China’s mobile internet market, followed by mobile advertising (20.1%) and mobile gaming (12.4%).

China’s mobile shopping market reached RMB 783.44 billion (USD 115.65 billion) in Q2 2016 with a growth rate of 75.9% YoY.

Nearly 60% of Chinese respondents said they used their mobile devices in-store to check and compare prices according to a study by JDA and Centiro.

Almost half respondents read products or service reviews using their mobile devices while shopping in-store.

Quality issue is the top reason digital buyers in China are less likely to make another purchase from a retailer.

China’s online shopping market transactions totaled RMB 1,117.8 billion (USD 167.51 billion) in the second quarter of 2016 with a growth rate of 27.6% YoY or 14.9% QoQ according to iResearch.

Online shopping represented 14.3% of China’s total consumer retail sales in Q2 2016. And, B2C accounted for 54.5% of total online shopping transactions, led by Tmall (54.5%) and JD (26.3%).

From January to June, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 15,613.8 billion yuan, up by 10.3 percent year-on-year. according to National Bureau of Statistics of China. The online retail sales of goods and services was 2,236.7 billion yuan, increased by 28.2% year-on-year.

Mobile online shopping market reached RMB 783.44 billion (USD 117.4 bn) in Q2 2016 in China, an increase of 75.9% YoY, accounting for 70.1% of total online shopping transactions.

Alibaba continued to dominate China’s mobile shopping market in Q2 2016 with over 80% market share.

The frequent women shoppers: they shop online frequently. They usually buy clothes, mother-care and baby products, cosmetics and skincare products. Quality and varieties are their primary concerns.

The quality-conscience men shoppers: they usually spend more money on online shopping. They often buy 3C (computer, communication, and consumer electronics) products and lotteries. They don’t shop online at workplaces. Price and credit are their concerns.

The young shoppers: they buy cosmetics and skincare products. They buy online through searching keywords or clicking on links in social media. Young people between 26 to 45 y-o prefer online shopping at home.

The middle-age shoppers: they often buy clothes, small household appliances, and telecom products. Also, they love staying at home, shopping online using the web browser.

The high-income shoppers: they are rich and shop more frequently online with higher average spend. They often buy  household appliances, jewelry, and furniture online. This group of shoppers often buy online in transport and prefer shopping by clicking via social media links.

The practical shoppers: they only buy clothes, shoes and telecom products online. They use fewer shopping apps.

Regional economic level influenced the development level of the online shopping market. The top five provinces with the highest online consumption located in the southeast coastal provinces where citizens got a higher income level than the average. Find out more here.

Online shoppers using 2 to 3 shopping apps accounted for 62.5%, and 4.9% use more than 5 apps.

Online shoppers using more shopping apps tend to spend more money. Shoppers who use more than 5 shopping apps are likely to spend above 10,000 yuan, and who use only 1 app tend to spend below 50 yuan. The sum of expense gathered between 50 to 500 yuan.

Domestic online shopping in China still accounted for most online shopping activities as only less than a quarter of shoppers bought cross-border products online according to a iResearch survey.

The number of shoppers who purchase goods directly through shopping apps or homepage has also increased. Shoppers who shop online with apps reached 64%.

Online shoppers’ shopping frequency is  at one to four times a month. The number of shoppers who shop online 3 times a month accounted for 15.8%.

Shoppers using desktop computers prefer shopping at home (77.9% in 2014 and 74.6% in 2015), followed by “shopping at workplaces” (53.4% in 2014 and 43% in 2015).

Also read: 7 Habits of China Online Shoppers

Emerging markets are leading the way with smartphone users in China (45.0%), India (36.7%) and Singapore (23.3%) Asia Pacific’s biggest adopters of digital wallets according to MasterCard.

Related: 7 Habits of China Online Shoppers

Overall, close to half of respondents (48.5%) across Asia Pacific have made a purchase using their smartphone in Q4 2015, led by those in India (76.4%), China (76.1%),South Korea (62.0%) and Thailand (61.1%).

Clothing and accessories (35%), personal care and beauty products (20.9%) and movie tickets (20.4%) are the top mobile shopping purchases amongst Asia Pacific consumers. Close to half of the consumers in China (46.4%), India (42.5%) and Korea (42.1%) shop for clothing and accessories on their smartphone.

Also read: Alibaba mobile MAUs grew to 410M, up 42% in Q1 2016

China’s mobile shopping market reached more than 519.99 billion yuan (US$80.25 billion) with an increase of 120.9% QoQ in Q3 2015 according to iResearch.

Mobile shopping market has developed quickly in China. The growth rate of mobile shopping came faster than the overall online shopping market in Q3 2015. Mobile shopping transaction sales reached 519.99 billion yuan (US$80.25 billion) accounting for 56.7% of total internet shopping sales.

Mobile shopping continued to reach China internet users. Transactions on mobile client accounted for 56.7% overall online sales with 5.9 percentage points higher compared to the previous quarter and 22.7 percentage points higher compared to the same period last year.

Alibaba (Tmall and Taobao) accounted for 84.6% of China’s mobile shopping market in Q3 2015. Jingdong cooperated with Tencent to transfer social networks users to shoppers. Suning tended to increase more traffic and sales by relying on Tmall of Alibaba. Vipshop added 5.6 million active consumers in Q3 2015.

China’s mobile shopping sales have exceeded the PC client since Q2 2015 and were still expected to climb in rapid growth according to iResearch. Available for accessing the internet at anytime and anywhere highly motivated mobile terminals as a link to boost integration of online and offline shopping.

In addition, with increasing activities in the rural market, online sales on the mobile terminal is predicted to occupy an increasingly important position relying on cheaper and more convenient equipment operating methods compared the PC client.

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

Total retail sales of China consumer goods were 26.24 trillion yuan (US$4.11 trillion) in 2014, an increase of 12% compared to the previous year. The growth rate of the Chinese retail market has dropped for five consecutive years. More than two-tenths of responding retailers have reduced opening new stores and the average number of employees fell by 0.8% and 1.2% respectively in 2013 and 2014 according to Deloitte.

Consumption in education, travel, culture, entertainment and others gradually occupied more share on consumers’ expenditure in the past few years. In the next 6 months, customers tend to spend more on food and beverage, travel, entertainment, investment, investment, home appliances and so on.

State-owned enterprises managed China’s industry in most aspects with overwhelming advantages. In recent several years, state-owned enterprises have given up much control to promote more dynamic market.

The growth rate of Chinese consumer goods market has declined following the slowing macroeconomy and residents’ income. Total retail sales of Chinese consumer goods were 26.24 trillion yuan (US$4.11 trillion) in 2014, an increase of 12% compared to the previous year. About 23% companies didn’t open any new stores in 2014 according to Deloitte.

Bricks-and-mortar retailing has become fragmented under the booming of China’s online shopping market. The growth rate of China’s top 100 chain retailers slowed down. 27% companies surveyed maintained negative growth in 2014.

The larger companies are, the more transactions companies may have. Chinese companies with national-wide operating scale gained an average revenue of 26.5 billion yuan (US$4.16 billion) and an increase of 9.6% in operating revenues compared to the previous year.

Shopping malls, convenience stores, and hypermarkets maintained growth in operating revenues in 2013 and 2014 compared to supermarkets, department stores, and specialty stores. Major retailers dropped in sales such as Sun Art, Carrefour, Lianhua, Yonghui, and Lotus.

Although the offline market in China didn’t see any significant improvement, the online shopping market maintained a steady momentum of growth in the recent several years. Overall transaction values of online shopping market reached 2.81 trillion yuan (US$0.44 trillion) in 2014, representing a growth of 48.7% compared with the same period the previous year and 10.7 percentage points slower compared with the growth rate in 2013. Overall online retailing sales accounted for 10.71% of the whole retailing market in China.

Many large offline retailers developed online shopping platforms in 2014 that the transaction values of O2O market in 2014 exceeded 300 billion yuan (US$47.07 billion) and was expected to reach 465.54 billion yuan (US$73.04 billion) in 2015. Lower price and good deals remained an important driver of online shoppers while product variety also saw more importance. Overall transactions of chain retailers’ online shopping market totaled 6.1 billion yuan in 2014.

Chinese mobile shopping market reached 928.5 billion yuan (US$145.67 billion) in 2012, reflecting an increase of 240% compared the previous year. In the first quarter of 2015, the mobile shopping market reached 362.34 billion yuan (US$56.85 billion) accounting for 47.8% of the overall internet shopping market and was expected to exceed 50% in 2015.

Skin-care products, milk and infant formula sold best online. Tmall, Taobao Jingdong, Jumei, Vipshop and others were major shopping platforms while when purchasing those products offline users were more likely to buy in Watsons, RT-MART, War-Mart, Carrefour and CR Vanguard.

Chinese cross-border e-commerce market saw much potential that the transaction values reached 4.2 trillion yuan (US$0.66 trillion) in 2014 with YoY growth of 33.3% and realized a 26.2% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) over the past five years. However, China was still new to cross-border e-commerce concluded by the relatively low import transaction values.

As high as 93.5% transactions were dealt on B2B platforms in 2014 in China and 6.5% on B2C platforms. However, with speedy development of logistics and overseas online shopping market, B2C market would increase in online transactions in the future. Tmall, Jingdong, Suning, Gome, Vipshop and Yihaoian were major B2C online shopping platforms.

Also read: 22% Online Shopping Spend Are Newly Created Demand

China’s e-commerce retail sales are expected to increase by 42.1% to US$672.01 billion, accounting for over 40% of the global e-commerce retail sales in 2015 estimated by eMarketer. The e-commerce market in 2018 is expected to reach US$1.57 trillion according to eMarketer. China has become the world’s largest e-commerce market.

With the development of mobile networks, mobile commerce market is booming in China. Although smartphone market in China is saturating, the smartphone penetration is expected to reach 38.6% this year.

Mobile commerce in 2015 is predicted to reach US$333.99 billion, making up about half of China’s total retail e-commerce sales. Retail e-commerce in 2015 accounts for only 15.9% of the total retail sales; and mobile 7.9%.

Rural netizens are major future consumers for e-commerce companies. To achieve long and continuous growth, companies have to seize opportunities to attract rural shoppers. Alibaba, the largest internet company in the world, is to invest 1 billion yuan (US$0.16 billion) in the logistics and delivery services to better serve rural shoppers in the coming Double 11 shopping festival. In addition, Chinese cross-border e-commerce is also growing fast.

Also read: China Mobile Shopping Turnover Surpassed PC in Q2 2015

Chinese e-commerce market increased by 21.3% to 12.3 trillion yuan (US$1.93 trillion) in 2014, and would maintain steady and rapid growth in the next few years. The e-commerce market in 2018 is expected to reach 24.2 trillion yuan (US$3.80 trillion) according to Kantar Retail.

Foods and Beverage, non-Food Grocery, household, personal care and cosmetics, infant nutrition and baby care were major fast-moving consumer goods of China’s e-commerce. Household, personal care and cosmetics were relatively less reliable on electronic market: only 3% manufacturers had over 10% online revenues of total sales.

6% of foods and beverage manufacturers got over 10% of revenues from the online market. Non-Food grocery were relatively dependable on the online market that 14% gained over 10% their sales from the internet. Infant nutrition and baby care were most mature market: about 59% manufacturers gained over 10% of total sales from the online market.

Size of business and branding, business growth and profitability, digital marketing and online shopper marketing capability were top three factors that influenced electronic manufacturers most, and followed by goods category insights, logistics and delivery capability. Digital marketing has been ever important for sales and revenues of companies.

Among the top ten powerful e-commerce companies of China, Jingdong ranked first owing to increasing integrated good categories, leading logistics system and high-level website traffic. Tmall ranked second, which behaved well in platform operation and digital marketing by standing on shoulders of strong big data of Alibaba. Yihaodian followed which was recognized for specialized foods and grocery supply.

Different Chinese etailers have its own category priorities according to Kantar Retail report:

Also read: China Mobile Shopping in Counties Over $32.16B in 2014

In 2014, China’s online shopping users reached 55.7% of the total internet users. In the mean time, mobile online shopping market was booming in China, with an annual growth rate of 63.5%, 3.2 times higher than the overall online shopping market.

The booming of the mobile shopping market accelerated the strategic layout of companies. The configuration of Chinese online shopping market remain steady. Taobao, Tmall and Jingdong led the market with penetration rates of 87.0%, 69.7% and 45.3% respectively. After being listed on the market, Jumei, Jingdong, Alibaba would broaden their business across the world.

According to China Internet Information Center (CNNIC), about 361.42 million Chinese shopped online in 2014, compared with 301.89 million in 2013. Mobile shopping users increased to 236.09 million, 55.7% of the total.

Almost one-third online shoppers were in the eastern region of China, followed by the southern (18.5%) and northeastern (16.7%). Users in the northwestern were the lowest.

China’s online shopping market  are more versatile compared with some western countries. China online users could buy both real and virtual goods online, some of which are even beyond many westerners’ imaginations. Clothes, computer and digital accessories, virtual cards and household appliance were main categories of online shopping in China.

Based on shopping frequency and expenditure, China online shoppers could be divided into two groups, generic shoppers and frequent shoppers.

Very frequent online shoppers in China spent more than generic shoppers. The average expenditure in half year of 2014 by frequent shoppers reached 12,610 yuan (US$1,976.78), almost five times of 2,687 yuan (US$421.22) by the generic online shoppers.

The omnipotent online shopping contributed 2,789.80 billion yuan (US$437.53 billion) to the total online retail, an increase of 49.7% compared with the same period last year, which was equal to 10.6% of China’s social consumer goods retail. China (US$41,151.50 billion) was the largest online shopping market in 2014, followed by the United States (US$3,056.50 billion).

Featured as online shopping market, the displayed information couldn’t show realistic meaning and value of products; thus product reputation, business or company’s fame, together with price were top three influencing factors from the view of consumers. Delivery time was also one of the purchase decision factors.

Affected by household income level, 11.6% showed they were willing sacrifice quality in shopping online, and 51% would consider quality and price both.

Payment channels for online shopping were diversified in China. Third party payment(eg.Alipay) was the mainstream channel, with penetration rate as high as 82.9%, and followed by online banking payment and quick payment.

The Chinese government published corresponding regulations to protect consumers’ rights and interests, one of which with a large impact was the ‘7-day refund; no question asked’. 30% online shoppers once refunded goods, and 75% resolved the refund successfully.

Invoice consciousness was not so strong in Chinese minds. During online shopping, only 11.9% asked for invoices each time, and 58.1% haven’t asked for any.

Online shopping for overseas goods gradually became a common practice of Chinese online shoppers. In 2014, only 4.8% admitted shopping for overseas goods; however, with many B2C companies realizing the potential, the group will grow in the future.

Clothes were first choices of 45.5% Chinese online shoppers shopping overseas. America, South Korea, and Japan were the hottest shopping destinations. The average order price of cross-border shoppers was higher than the overall online shopping. In 2014, the annual average spned of online cross-border shoppers was 4989 yuan (US$782.10), 64.1% of the overall.

66.4% users chose to purchase overseas goods online due to the high quality in some foreign countries, and half due to lower prices. However, online shoppers sometimes faced problems such as long delivery time, damaged or loss of goods, hard to check and unable to refund or return.

Social e-business wasn’t a new concept in China. As early as 2011, Chinese companies began the exploration in the social network and online shopping market. According to the research by CNNIC, online shoppers accounted for 70.6% of WeChat users, 55.2% of QQ users, and 36.5% of Sina Weibo users, which had a tremendous potential.

About 46.6% social networking users showed tolerance towards advertisements and marketing in social media. 27.8% users once forwarded messages and information of these websites, and 33.8% finally made orders following the promotion information.

China’s social media shopping had good genes and soil, with the continuous development of e-business market and acceleration of major companies, the proportion of this group and online overseas shoppers could be significantly increased.

Also read: China E-Payment Insights 2015

In Q2 2015, China’s online shopping market reached 872.54 billion yuan (US$136.77 billion), with a high level increase of 39.6%, which accounted for 12.3% of total retail value compared with 10% in 2014.

The transaction value of mobile shopping market exceeded 443.45 billion yuan (US$69.51 billion), an increase of 133.5% far higher than the overall growth of the online shopping market, which has become the main driving force for the rapid development of online shopping market in China.

The transaction value of B2C market reached 442.13 billion yuan (US$69.31 billion) in Q2 2015, accounting for 50.7% of the overall online shopping value, 6.2 percentage points higher compared with Q2 2014. B2C market has been growing rapidly, this quarter China’s B2C online shopping market grew by 59.1%, much higher than C2C (24%). B2C has exceeded C2C to become the mainstream of China’s online shopping market.

From the use of different internet access devices, mobile shopping transaction value surpassed the PC-end turnover for the first time accounting for 50.8% of China’s online shopping market, an increase of 20 percentage points compared with the same period last year. In the future, mobile-end shopping would become major driving force of online shopping in China.

Tmall accounted for 55.6% of the total B2C online shopping market; Jingdong 25.2%, and the others totalled about 20% in Q2 2015.

Alibaba’s mobile apps, such as Taobao and Tmall, made up 83.7% of China’s mobile shopping market share; Jingdong increased to 6.1%; and Vipshop ranked third with share of 2.5%.

Also read: China’s Mobile Market Analysis in Q2 2015

According to AliResearch, in 2014, China counties mobile online shopping market exceeded 200 billion yuan (US$32.16 billion), with an increase of 250% YoY, far higher than the increase of online shopping value of the same period.

Among the top 25 counties of largest contribution on mobile shopping value, most are in the eastern coastal areas, including nine in Zhejiang, five in Jiangsu, four in Fujian and two in Shandong. This phenomenon had relations with the local consumption levels and other factors.

Also read: China Mobile Gaming Market in H1 2015