Taobao.com takings more than Carefour and Wal-Mart combined

Taobao.com, which has a 70% share of China’s online shopping business, more than doubled throughput to US$5.98 billion (RMB43.3 billion) last year, fuelled by a swelling online population and rising disposable incomes, the Shanghai Business Journal reported. The company posted 156% growth in customer-to-customer revenues last year, higher than the 90.4% gain across all online shopping businesses in China last year. Its turnover was even higher than combined China turnover at French retail giant Carrefour – US$3.43 billion (RMB24.8 billion) – and Wal-Mart – US$2.07 billion (RMB15 billion). The number of Taobao.com users soared 77% to 53 million last year, and average spending increased 45% to US$113 (RMB817) per person. The most popular goods were clothing, mobile phones, makeup and daily necessities. The website said last week it will launch a new platform in March enabling domestic and overseas producers and retailers to sell their products directly to Chinese buyers. Taobao.com is owned by Alibaba.com.