China’s e-commerce sector jumps to US $2.68 trillion in 2014 despite a sluggish domestic economy

China’s e-commerce surged up to US $2.68 trillion in 2014, concluding to a 59.4% jump from the previous year despite a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.

The above stats for transaction volume of Chinese e-commerce platforms can be credited to improved Internet infrastructure and an increase in cellphone users, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, as per the data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Image courtesy: www.joc.com

China is counting on e-commerce to lead a new wave of consumption and prop up economic growth to overcome the weakened economic demand. There has been a phenomenal increase in the number of internet users taking the count to 668 million in China in the first half of this year, with 90% of them being the mobile internet users. The internet penetration is quite high in the rural areas as well, 27.9 per cent or 186 million among the internet are rural residents, more than 30 per cent of China’s rural population are online.

China boasted the world’s largest 4G network and 361 million online shoppers by the end of 2014, majority of whom purchase goods online via e-commerce units such as Taobao, China’s largest online shop promoted by e-commerce giant Alibaba.

E-commerce has enabled farmers in rural areas to shop, connect, transact easily and also being acquainted with latest technology know-hows. With high internet availability and latest technologies, agriculture has got a boost by making the production faster, greener and safer.

Taking in to consideration the bright outlook, E-Commerce giants are making efforts to get a bigger share of the agricultural sector benefiting both the farmers and the business and ultimately the economy. Taobao.com has even launched an agricultural channel.

Recently China has been showing the world what it takes to leverage technology and e-commerce to boost up the country’s economy.