China’s E-Commerce Maintains Steady Growth in Jan-Feb, Delivering a Strong Start

China’s e-commerce sector has maintained steady development in the first two months of this year, with digital consumption on an upward trend, industrial e-commerce driving digital and intelligent transformation, and the Silk Road E-Commerce enhancing its global benefit brand effect, marking a sound start for high-quality development.

Digital consumption has remained vibrant as a series of consumption-boosting policies have taken effect in the e-commerce field. The National Online Spring Festival Shopping Festival, the first online event of the “Shop in China” campaign throughout the year, has enriched consumption choices for the holiday market, effectively stimulating consumer demand.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the total retail sales of online goods and services nationwide rose by 9.2% year-on-year in January and February. Data monitored by the Ministry of Commerce’s big data platform shows striking growth in smart products, with online retail sales of smart glasses and window-cleaning robots surging by 183.5% and 130.8% respectively.

Digital technology has also empowered living services such as tourism, catering and accommodation. Online booking with offline experience models have driven retail sales of tourism and catering up by 36.1% and 27.3% respectively, reflecting the deep integration of digital technology with traditional living services.

Industrial e-commerce has played a profound role in empowering related industries, with in-depth docking activities carried out to promote the digital and intelligent transformation of industries through platform empowerment. From January to February, online retail sales of agricultural products increased by 17.6%, while transaction volumes of industrial e-commerce for key monitored metals and industrial products rose by 63.8% and 8.8% respectively.

The development of industrial e-commerce has driven the rapid growth of related industries including logistics, express delivery, artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Data from the State Post Bureau shows that the average daily express delivery volume in January exceeded 590 million pieces, with the highest volume breaking 700 million pieces after the Spring Festival. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the penetration rate of artificial intelligence technology application among China’s above-scale manufacturing enterprises has exceeded 30%.

The Silk Road E-Commerce has promoted win-win cooperation through themed activities such as “Silk Road E-Commerce Benefits the World” and “Silk Road E-Commerce Celebrates the Spring Festival”, which have linked “Shop in China” and “Export from China” and introduced characteristic commodities from partner countries including Central Asian nations, SCO members and ASEAN countries.

From January to February, sales of global commodities on key e-commerce import platforms increased by 7.6%, with Icelandic salmon, Thai durian and Brazilian beef seeing remarkable growth of 510.9%, 443.6% and 156% respectively, continuously enhancing the sense of gain among partner countries and boosting the global influence of China’s e-commerce.