Tag: m-commerce

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.

Alibaba’s Alipay platform is growing aggressively in the mobile commerce space

Alibaba continues to find success in the mobile payments field. The company’s Alipay platform has become a resounding success in China, where more consumers are participating in mobile commerce. The rise in mobile shopping has to do with growing smartphone penetration. More consumers have access to smartphones and tablets than ever before, and these people are using their devices to shop for and purchase products online and in physical stores.

Alipay has more than 270 million monthly active users that participate in mobile commerce

Alipay now has more than 350 million registered users, with 270 million monthly active users. This makes the platform even more successful than PayPal, which boasts of 162 million active users. Alipay was launched in 2004 and saw relatively little support in its earlier years. As mobile commerce began to gain momentum, however, the platform became very successful among consumers. Merchants have flocked to the platform in order to engage mobile consumers more effectively and have managed to find success in doing so.

Tencent struggles to keep up with Alibaba when it comes to mobile payments

Alibaba’s mobile payments platform does not exist without competition, of course. Tencent, another of China’s largest companies, also holds a position in the mobile commerce market. The company has been working to establish a stronger foothold in the sector, but has failed to keep up with Alibaba, which has managed to attract the support of several Chinese banks and other major retail organizations.

Mobile commerce still represents a small portion of the commerce space

While mobile commerce is growing quickly, it still represents a relatively small portion of the overall commerce market. As consumers become more comfortable with mobile commerce, they will become more likely to use their mobile devices to purchase products, both online and off. There are still some security concerns when it comes to the mobile commerce space, however, which is slowing its adoption. As mobile payments services become more advanced, these concerns are becoming less of an issue.