That’s a Lot of Gadgets: Tmall Hits $3.17 Billion in Sold Electronics in H1 2012

With half-year financial results coming in thick and fast, China’s biggest B2C ecommerce site, Tmall, has revealed that it sold 20 billion RMB ($3.165 billion) in gadgets and electronics alone in 2012 H1. This sales revenue figure comes only from its virtual electronics storefront at 3c.tmall.com.

Contacted by TiA, a representative of Tmall’s parent company, Alibaba, said that sales figures for the subsidiary site as a whole would probably not be revealed until next year. Being a private company, Tmall doesn’t need to make any such stats public, but it clearly felt the 3C (computing, communication, and consumer items) stat was worth boasting about. Alibaba expects the sales of electronics on the site to reach 50 billion RMB ($7.92 billion) by the end of the year.

It provides an interesting contrast to our post earlier this morning about Suning.com, the relatively new ecommerce venture by the major bricks-and-mortar retailer. That website, the fourth largest in China’s fierce B2C sector, sold 5.9 billion RMB ($934.61 million) worth of stuff in 2012 H1. (Though it’s worth noting that Suning.com has also diversified into online travel bookings and a few other non-3C segments).

In the most recent 2012 Q2 market share stats, Alibaba’s Tmall.com comfortably extended its dominance to take 41.5 percent of the huge e-tailing market in China. With sales of electronics being central to rivals 360Buy, Suning, and Tencent’s QQ Buy, clearly Tmall wants to emphasise that it’s a gadget-selling powerhouse. Perhaps today’s figure is the fruit of its recent price war with 360Buy, in which Tmall subsidized lower prices on a number of gadgets.