e-Commerce in China: online sales boomed in 2009

Online sales in China almost doubled in the first nine months of last year, official data showed recently, as China becomes more switched on and the younger generation of shoppers bare more confident in Internet shopping.

China’s enormous Internet community spent 168.9 billion yuan (US$25 billion) through their computers in the January-September/2009 period, a 90 percent increase from the same period of the previous year, the government data showed.

Di Jiankai, a director-general of the commerce ministry, told reporters the total figure for the whole year was expected to exceed 260 billion yuan. “The commerce ministry pays great attention to e-commerce,” he added. “It is a very important business form we can use to boost consumption.”

Liu Ning, a Beijing-based analyst with research firm BDA China, said the online shopping market has been growing strongly as consumers become more confident in payment security and the quality of goods sold.

“Users are getting more and more familiar with Internet shopping and they now have got some guarantee with the emergence of the third-party payment companies,” he told AFP.

“All these are among the factors behind the market boom.”

China has at least 338 million Internet users, more than any other country in the world, official data shows. By the end of June/2009, the number of online shoppers in China reached 88 million, meaning one in four Internet users shopped online, according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center.

via China sees online sales booming in 2009 – People’s Daily Online.