China's social e-commerce to reach $170b in 2018

BEIJING - China's social e-commerce will reach 1.14 trillion yuan ($170 billion) in 2018, with a year-on-year increase of 66.7 percent, according to a report by the 2018 China Internet Conference earlier this month.

Social e-commerce, which emerged in 2013 in China, combines social media with e-commerce. E-commerce platforms Xiaohongshu and Pinduoduo are two examples.

Xiaohongshu users post their purchase, others who like the items can directly go to the product page by clicking tags. On Pinduoduo, users post the items they want to buy and invite others to cut the price by buying the same items or clicking on the posts.

The report predicted that more than 30 million people will work in the social e-commerce industry in 2018, 50.2 percent more than 2017.

China has the world's largest e-commerce market, with online retail sales growing 32.2 percent year on year in 2017 to reach 7.2 trillion yuan.

Data provided by the Ministry of Commerce showed that, by 2020, online retail sales will reach 9.6 trillion yuan, while social e-commerce sales are expected to account for 31.3 percent.