eCommerce has been THE hot topic in Chinese retail for the past few years culminating in the listing of Alibaba on the NYSE. Alibaba reached, at least on day 1, a greater market value than either Facebook or Amazon.
Much of this hype has been focused on the ongoing potential of the eCommerce market, only half of the Chinese population is currently online (vs. c.70%-90% in most developed markets) and online’s low share of wallet vs. offline spend among many of the online population.
However, this market is facing a mobile revolution with mCommerce becoming the driving force that will push online spending to ever greater heights. Mobile commerce (mCommerce) already represents c.8%-10% of the eCommerce market and will be the key that unlocks and accelerates this heralded extra growth in eCommerce.