Tag: m-commerce china

This massive market is still seeing smartphone based shopping growth at an exponential rate.

The m-commerce market in China has seen a tremendous growth throughout the first quarter of this year, according to the figures that have been released in a report by a company called iResearch, which is based in Beijing.

The report indicated that in Q1 of this year, there was an increase in mobile shopping by 168 percent.

This brought the Chinese m-commerce market up to an estimated $59 billion. The growth rate in that market was tremendously greater than the overall mobile shopping increase seen globally, which was a very healthy 45 percent. The iResearch figures were based on measurements of the gross merchandise volumes (GMV). The prediction that was made based on the data is that there will have been a continued rapid growth throughout Q2 2015.

M-commerce purchases made up almost half of all online shopping that occurred in China during Q1.

The amount of online shopping that occurred over mobile devices more than doubled from what it had been during the same quarter last year, when it had been a much lower 22 percent. The data from last year’s fourth quarter showed that the GMV was peaking at $61.25 billion, after which, the figures dropped by 4.7 percent in the following quarter.

It was pointed out by iResearch that online shoppers in China have been increasingly embracing researching products and making purchases over their smartphones and tablets, and that growth of traffic over PCs has started slowing down.

The largest contributor to mobile GMV was Taobao Wireless (which is owned by Alibaba), but even that share fell from having been 87.4 percent in the first quarter of 2014 to be 84.5 percent in the same quarter, this year. The reason is that competitors are starting to gain some meaningful share. These include companies such as Vip and JD.com. Vip is now up to 2.8 percent while JD.com has increased to 5.2 percent (after it was at 3.3 percent, last year)

According to iResearch, this m-commerce competition has become increasingly intense, as each of the major participants battle to be able to grab hold of a greater share through new efforts and initiatives.

The first quarter in the country was worth $4.29 billion and is clearly dominated by one business.

In 2012, the m-commerce market in China was worth $7.8 billion, but this year, it is expected that it will be worth considerably more, as the first quarter alone brought in $4.29 billion.

It is expected that by the year 2015, the market will rise to reach $41.4 billion, which represents an astounding growth.

What is even more notable is that the m-commerce market appears to be primarily led by a single company, according to the latest data from iResearch. Its latest study of the numbers from that country has shown that Taobao is the clear market leader in China and that its dominance is considerable.

Taobao is the m-commerce market leader for China and is the company behind the highly successful Alibaba.

Alibaba, a consumer to consumer online shopping mall, has been popular in China for over ten years. Now, its Taobao is taking off in the m-commerce environment. Its lead is estimated to be massive, as it takes in about 75.1 percent as its market share when measured by the value of the mobile purchases made by consumers in China. Its parent company is Tmall, a B2C marketplace.

In second place for m-commerce in China, well behind Taobao, is Jingdong. That company was formerly known as 360Buy and is also the second largest B2C online retailer. The share of the market for this company was recorded by iResearch to be lower than its online market share. The report suggested, therefore, that it is important for companies in China – particularly those with an online mall atmosphere – to add considerable focus to their mobile strategies.

It is notable that even some of the major players in online shopping are not achieving the same types of successes in the m-commerce market space, when it comes to their shares. That said, the report also indicated that there is still a shift toward the mobile space, albeit a slow one. Equally, it is expected that 2013 will bring in the largest figures on record for mobile shopping in China, potentially exceeding the previous predictions by the firm, that it would be worth $15.7 billion this year.