Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba
is expected to surpass US multinational firm, WalMart soon as the world’s
largest retail platform with its total trading volume this fiscal year set to
exceed US$463.3 billion, Press Trust of India ( PTI )
reported, citing an official media.
An official announcement by
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is expected to be made at the end of this fiscal year
on March 31.
WalMart Stores Inc posted net
sales of US$478.6 billion for its fiscal year ending Jan 31, while the latest
trading volume figure for Alibaba amounted to three trillion yuan (US$463.3
billion), the company said yesterday.
It is equivalent to China’s
Sichuan province's gross domestic product (GDP) last year, when the province’s
GDP ranked sixth on the Chinese mainland, state-run China Daily reported
today.
Zhang Yong, the company’s chief
executive officer, said in Hangzhou that the figure was recorded on the
company's business-to-customer platform Tmall, consumer-to-consumer platforms
Taobao and Rural Taobao, and group-buying site Juhuasuan.
Zhang said he expected the
company to achieve an annual trading volume of six trillion yuan by 2020 (about
US$980 billion) and that “in 2024, we wanted to be a business platform serving
two billion consumers and tens of millions of enterprises at home and abroad”.
According to Zhang, the company
will strive to combine cloud computing and big data technologies with the internet
and the Internet of Things, as well as consumer terminal equipment, to spur its
development.
The Internet of Things is the
network of physical objects - devices, vehicles, buildings and other items -
embedded with electronics, software, sensors and network connectivity that
enables these objects to collect and exchange data.
Citing the National Bureau of
Statistics and McKinsey & Co figures, Gao Hongbing, director of
AliResearch, said that of Alibaba's 3 trillion yuan in total trading volume,
about 660 billion to 1.17 trillion yuan is newly increased consumption.
“Online shopping has been an
important engine to promote consumption, which meets the nation's strategy of
promoting domestic demand,” Gao said.
Last year, Chinese consumers’
willingness to spend reached the highest level since 2012, despite the economic
slowdown, according to a study published in February by The Nielsen Company.
“This is a result of China’s
commitment to shifting from an investment-driven to a consumption-driven
economy,” said Kiki Fan, managing director of Nielsen China,China Daily reported.
“Booming online shopping provides
more variety and convenience to customers, thus fuelling their spending
desire,” the daily quoted Fan as saying.
Despite its economic growth
falling below 7 percent for the first time since 2009, China surpassed the US
last year to become the largest e-commerce market in the world, according to
statistics from multinational consultancy Forrester Research Inc.
The Chinese government has fixed
6.5 percent to seven percent GDP target for this year.
- Bernama
