Asia Pacific dominates worldwide online retail

With sales touching 877.61 billion US dollars, Asia Pacific will dominate the worldwide e-commerce market this year, which marks an increase of 35.7 percent compared to 2014. For the first time ever, the region will not only sport the largest digital retail market in the world - which grows 10 percent faster than any other - but will also have the biggest share with 52.5 percent according to New York-based market research firm eMarketer.

“This rapid growth in Asia-Pacific coupled with faster internet service and greater mobile uptake, is heating up the competitive landscape where large local players are increasingly vying for market share by improving their logistics and mobile platforms, and in some cases moving entirely to an app-only service,” said Monica Peart, eMarketer's director of forecasting.

China, India and Indonesia drive region's growth

Three countries in particular boost the rapid growth of Asia Pacific: China, India and Indonesia, with the latter two markets showing growths of 129.5 and 65.6 percent, respectively, in 2015. Reasons for this rapid growth are rising middle classes in all three countries and the increasing popularity of mobile devices, which enables more people to be online and thus shop online.

China's share of worldwide e-commerce sales will be 40 percent this year; an increase of almost five percent compared to 2014. The independent market research company predicts that by 2018, China's share would have grown to 50 percent and to 55.1 percent in 2019, whereas e-commerce is also the driver behind China's retail sales in general.

By 2019, eMarketer forecasts that Asia Pacific will have a share of 20.4 percent of worldwide retail sales or a volume of 11.46 trillion US dollars. In 2015, this figure amounts to 8.57 trillion US dollars.

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