Sales data from Alibaba’s online retail platforms for 2016 reveals the five key behavioral trends of China’s online shoppers when compared to figures from the previous year.

6 emerging consumer segments you shouldn’t ignore

Cainiao Network, an Alibaba affiliate, was founded in 2013 to create a logistics information platform that links a network of delivery partners, warehouses, and merchants to make package deliveries faster and more efficient. 

Cainiao’s business covers express delivery, warehouse fulfillment, last-mile delivery, rural logistics and cross-border logistics.

Cainiao Network connects 6.1 million delivery routes, 2 million couriers, over 40,000 pick-up stations, 3,000 transportation companies, 30,000 rural villages, and 15 leading express delivery companies.

According to AliResearch, China’s logistics industry has grown by more than 50% for six consecutive years due to the increasing popularity of online shopping and e-commerce. Some 80 million parcels are delivered every day, adding up to 31.3 billion a year.

In March 2017, 81% of the shipping labels used by these express courier firms for orders generated on Alibaba’s China retail marketplaces used Cainiao Network’s standardized structured data format to ensure faster and more accurate delivery to consumers, up from 60% in the same period last year.

It has integrated data with Russia Post, reducing the parcel time from 50 days to 15 days.

Kantar Media CIC released the “Every 60 Seconds in China” infographic in Shanghai last week to provide an overall understanding of the massive volume of China social media activities.

The “Every 60 seconds in China” infographic highlights the enormous data generated every minute in the age of Big Data.

China social media is now used by more age groups, by fewer educated people and by people in smaller cities according to Kantar Group.

64.7% of 13,341 participants in Kantar research said social media’s impact is positive, 12.1 percentage points lower than a year ago while 12.2% of respondents said social media made their lives worse, nearly doubling last year’s 6.7%.

Social media’s reach among urban internet users in China has increased to 34% from last year’s 28.6%. The post-90s has become the largest age group (37.7%) and the proportion of older generations also increased while post-80s dropped from 44.8% to 30.8%. Most post-80s in China are in early years or marriage, many of which have a child to take care and busy work life. Besides, this generation is more conservative than the post-90s. That contributes more or less to the dropped activities on China social media.

The Kantar survey also found that 15 entertainment WeChat official accounts made the top 50 influential accounts and attracted 49% of total clicks followed. In comparison, the 10 news and information accounts of the top 50 garnered only 5% of all reads.

The average number of reads per post of the top 50 was 39,531 while the average number of likes was 154. On average, an account published just 21 posts each week. For the top three, the average was even lower at 16 posts according to Kantar survey.

On Weibo, Kantar also found entertainment still the largest category (25.4%), followed by news events 19.6%, health and beauty (15.7%), work and study (14.3%), travel (12%) and others (13%). The analysis of emoticons found 67% positive.

You can download the inforgraphic here (PDF).

Report download: Kantar China Social Media Impact 2015 (PDF)

In August 2014, total PPC user reach in China social media service were 470 million with an increase of 10.7% YoY and 0.8% QoQ. Continue reading here.

Check out this infographic to have an overview of Alibaba Group’s investment and acquisitions since 2005 before its IPO.

Key investment and acquisitions of Alibaba and its co-founder Jack Ma, the richest man in China:

• 2005
  • Yahoo paid US$1 billion in cash for 40% stake in Alibaba; it also merged its China-based subsidiaries into Alibaba
• 2006
  • Yipai.com, similar to Taobao, was merged into Alibaba Taobao. Yipai had 7.29% market share in Q3 2005.
  • Alibaba acquired Koubei.com, one of China’s largest online classified listing companies, which was founded by an ex-Alibaba employee
• 2009
  • Alibaba paid RMB 540 million to acquire Net.cn, a leading basic Internet services provider (web hosting, domain names, etc.)
• 2010
  • Alibaba invested in Shanghai Baozun, an e-commerce outsourcing service provider
  • Alibaba purchased shares of private courier company – Xing Chen Ji Bian
  • Alibaba acquired U.S. E-Commerce software firm Vendio
  • Alibaba invested $35 million to Emapgo (EMG; develops digital navigation maps) to become its biggest shareholder.
  • Alibaba acquired Auctiva, a company that develops eBay auction management software
• 2011
  • Alibaba joined in Meituan’s (a group-buying website) US$50M Series B financing
• 2012
  • Alibaba invested in DDMap, a lifestyle e-commerce service provider
• 2013
  • Alibaba, Tencent and Ping An Insurance co-founded Zhong An Online Property Insurance Co. which was expected to be China’s first property insurance company selling all products online.
  • Alibaba acquired a leading music service company Xiami, founded by a former Alibaba employee
  • Alibaba invested in Taxi booking service provider Kuaidi
  • Alibaba bought a stake of about 18% in Sina Weibo for $586 million
  • Alibaba acquired mobile analytics provider Umeng for $80 million
  • Alibaba invested in travel experience sharing app Zailushang (117go.com)
  • Alibaba invested $294 million and took a 28% stake in digital mapping company AutoNavi Holdings Ltd; it bought AutoNavi in Feb 2014 in a deal that values the Chinese company at $1.5 billion
  • With registered capital of 5 billion yuan, Alibaba set up Cainiao Network in Shenzhen with its partners to build their own logistics network to cover entire China.
  • Alibaba invested in travel website Qyer.com
  • Alibaba invested RMB 3.1 billion in UCWeb in March 2013 and fully bought out UCWeb in Jun 2014, who is the maker of one of China’s most popular web browsers.
  • Bought a minority stake in online shopping company ShopRunner
  • Alibaba acquired Kanbox, the personal cloud storage service
  • Invested $50 million in app search engine Quixey
  • Alibaba’s Alipay took control of Tianhong Asset Management Co with 1.18 billion yuan investment for 51% stake.
  • Alibaba invested HK$2.82 billion in Haier, including HK$1.86 billion to form a new joint venture with Haier’s wholly owned logistics unit Goodaymart
• 2014
  • Alibaba and Yunfeng Capital, a private equity firm founded by Jack Ma, bought pharmaceutical data provider CITIC 21 CN for $170 million
  • Alibaba invested $15 million in 1stdibs, the fast-growing luxury e-commerce site
  • Invested in TutorGroup, a leading online education platform
  • Alibaba announced it would invest about $692 million in Intime Retail Group Co., owner of department stores and supermarkets
  • Invested in Baicheng.com, a travel website focusing on outbound trips
  • Invested $215 million for a minority stake in the messaging and free-calling app Tango
  • Hundsun, a well known supplier of financial software and network services, was acquired by Zhejiang Rongxin owned by Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma with 3.299 billion yuan (USD 534.38M)
  • Jack Ma and other partners agreed to pay 6.54 bln yuan ($1.05 bln) for a 20% stake in China’s Wasu Media Holding. Alibaba and Wasu would cooperate for online content and Internet TV
  • Alibaba (16.5% stake), Yunfeng (2%) agree to buy $1.22 billion stake in Youku Tudou
  • Alibaba announced to invest SGD 313 million in Singapore Post for 10.35% stake
  • Alibaba agreed to take a 50% stake in Guangzhou Evergrande Football Club

Download a high resolution PDF version of this infographic here.

Related: INFOGRAPHIC Alibaba V.S. JD.com by Numbers

Alibaba and Jingdong (JD.com) are the two e-commerce giants in China and now both public listed; you may be wondering how one compares with the another. Here is a simple infographic comparing Alibaba and JD.com by numbers.

Also see the comparison of Alibaba with Amazon; or find out their detailed performance in Q2 2014 here and here.

Tmall, JD, Amazon are well known online retailers in Chinese market, but who else? Here is the inforgraphic of the top 30:

Alipay’s Yu’E Bao, linked with monetary fund, is a value added service of Alipay serving as an alternative investment way for China internet users. It’s been launched for a little over one year; let’s take a look at its journey of rapid development.

Infographic created by Danqi

Do you know that some Chinese who stay up late tend to buy before they sleep; three peak period for women clothing purchase; moms’ mobile shopping starts from midnight; the middle aged often buy collectibles in the afternoon…

I created this infographic based on recently released data from Taobao so that you can get an overall understanding about Taobao shoppers’ habits.

One minute is equal to 60 seconds, which seems really short. However, during this short period, a variety of things is taking place.

And what is happening on the constantly changing internet in ONE minute? According to the data provided by Intel, an amount of 47,000 apps are downloaded. Amazon sells products with their value of USD 83,000. And, there are over 6 million views on Facebook.

As on China internet, what changes is taking place in one minute? The chart above is ready to show you.