Chinese eCommerce Hit $2 Trillion in 2014

As far as eCommerce in China goes, business is booming.

A report released yesterday (April 8) from the China E-Commerce Research Center (CECRC) shows that the country’s eCommerce market increased by 31.4 percent in 2014 to reach $2.2 trillion (13.4 trillion yuan), according to China’s Xinhua News Agency.

The bulk of that total was attributed to B2B transactions, which accounted for $1.6 trillion (about 10 trillion yuan), itself a rise of 21.9 percent over the previous year.

The sector that saw the biggest jump in percentage, though, was online retail, which nearly doubled, rising 49.7 percent — according to the CECRC’s data — to reach $450 billion (2.8 trillion yuan). To that point, International Business Times credits the expansion of online retail sites in China such as JD.com, Taobao and Tmall (the latter two of which are owned by Alibaba).

The report additionally showed that by the end of 2014, more than 2.5 million people in China worked directly for the eCommerce industry, with another 18 million being employed in fields that are at least partially connected to eCommerce to varying degrees.

CECRC analyst Zhang Zhouping told Xinhua that eCommerce in China is making a notable impact not only on the retail industry, but also on ones such as education and medical care.

IB Times also cites CECRC analysts as giving credit to the growing popularity of smartphones in China as a factor in the expansion of eCommerce throughout the country, given that the devices provide Internet access for many people who did not have it before — particularly citizens living in rural areas. Analyst Mo Daiqing, according to IB Times, attributes the rise in mobile payment services as yet another component that has helped facilitate eCommerce growth.