China has surpassed the US to become the world’s largest online retail market with its e-commerce grossing $439 million of revenue last year (or 7 per cent of its GDP), state-owned Global Times said quoting a report of the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC). According to the report, the internet has become a critical element of China’s economic progress in the past five years. Online retail transactions reached 2.79 billion yuan ($439 million) in 2014, one of the key economic achievements of China’s Internet development during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15). According to CNNIC, there are so far 328 listed internet companies in China, whose total market cap reached 785 trillion yuan, accounting for 25.6 per cent of the country’s market capitalisation. Four of them have made their way to the top 10 world Internet companies, including Alibaba. In 2014, the number of online shoppers climbed to 361 million, representing 55.7 per cent of China’s shoppers. Online shopping represents 20 per cent of all consumer demand, the report said. For the first time mobile phones have become the most commonly-used platform to access the internet, followed by computers. Some 594 million people in China can access to the Internet through mobile phones. The number is 86.8 per cent higher than in 2005-10. The internet also boosted growth in related industries such as smart phones, servers, storage and internet infrastructure, the report said.
