In 2022, Alibaba ranked first among China's comprehensive e-commerce retailers, with a market share of nearly 50 percent. JD.com ranked second with a GMV share of 26 percent.
E-commerce retail in China
China has become one of the world’s largest e-commerce markets. As a major driver of the country’s retail economy, e-commerce sales share experienced a considerable rise from 10.6 percent of the total retail sales in 2014, to about 24.5 percent in 2021. The e-commerce retail sales valueis estimated to reach 3.99 trillion U.S. dollars by 2026.
Alibaba: the e-commerce giant
Established in 1999, Alibaba.com was founded by Jack Ma, who stepped down as chairman in September 2019. Initially, Alibaba was a traditional e-commerce company but has now transformed into a conglomerate. It has a wide range of business including services such as financial, logistics, digital media, and cloud computing. In fiscal year 2022, the revenue of Alibaba amounted to around 853.1 billion yuan. The number of active consumers across Alibaba's online shopping properties reached 903 million in the first quarter of 2022.
Alibaba Group launched the Singles’ Day marketing plan in 2008, focusing on offering numerous discounts, red packet coupons, and promotions to improve sales on November 11 (or 11.11). This date was chosen to represent single people among Chinese youth from the early 1990s. In 2021, Alibaba's gross merchandise volume on Singles' Day skyrocketed to 84.54 billion U.S. dollars. This represented an astonishing growth from 0.82 billion U.S. dollars just a decade earlier.
