Asia’s ecommerce spending to hit record $1 trillion this year – but most of that is China

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Asia’s growing number of online shoppers are set to spend a record US$1 trillion in 2016, shows new data released today by Emarketer.

While booming ecommerce uptake in India and Southeast Asia is helping push the tally upwards, China’s much more developed online retail market makes up for the vast majority of that US$1 trillion – US$899 billion of it, to be precise.

China is already the world’s biggest ecommerce market, ahead of the US. China’s keen web shoppers accounted for 42.8 percent of worldwide ecommerce spending in 2015, says Emarketer; and that will rise to a projected 47 percent this year.

Asia’s ecommerce appetite, being the fastest growing region in the world, is expected to rocket to US$2.7 trillion by 2020.

“Expanding middle classes, greater mobile and internet penetration, growing competition of ecommerce players and improving logistics and infrastructure will all help to fuel ecommerce growth in the region,” says the Emarketer report.

China retail spend eclipses US

China will hit a major milestone this year as its total retail market – both online and offline shopping – will surpass the US for the first time.

China’s retail spending is set to hit US$4.9 trillion, compared with US$4.8 trillion in the US, according to Emarketer’s analysts.

Total retail sales across Asia – US$9 trillion this year – account for 20.8 percent of the global purse. “Burgeoning consumer economies in China, India and Indonesia will drive retail sales over the next four years as disposable incomes in those countries continue to rise,” concludes the report.

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