When you look back over the last ten years, you can quickly see that China’s digital catch-up occurred at the beginning of the decade, or even before and that it very quickly gained a lead over most Western countries. By the end of 2015, I was already no longer using cash or credit cards for purchases in China. I paid all through We Chat or Alipay. Everything became more straightforward with the digitalization, banking, health, and even the administrations took the train. The sector even flourished during the epidemic.
36.2% of GDP
China’s digital economy continues to grow. It generated 36.2% of China’s GDP in 2019, with 3500 billion yuan, contributing to 67.7% growth. Big data accounts for 810 billion, +32%. Information technology services and software companies posted an increase of 21.4% and Internet-related services of 29.1%. The electronic equipment manufacturing sector grew by 9.3%. The number of Internet transactions reached 3,481 billion yuan last year.
25% of retail sales of physical products online
In August, Internet retail sales of physical products, up 15.8%, accounted for a quarter of total sales. The material/concrete category 实物商品 includes all products that are delivered by a transportation system, such as clothing, books, food. They cannot be sold in a dematerialized manner, such as software or digital subscriptions. We cannot compare the same categories, but for your information, e-commerce in France is not expected to generate much more than 10% of retail sales this year. In the United States, the proportion of online sales rose from 15.1% in the second quarter of 2019 to 16.1% in the same period of 2020.
All the lights are green?
Revenues from Internet platforms increased by 13.6% in the first half of the year. The cloud sector also benefited from the increase in demand, with a growth of 14.3%. Industrial companies in services have exceeded the 400,000 mark and industrial APPs 250,000.
Numerous transformations will come about; the government is pushing the digitization of the economy and society with significant resources. All sectors are affected, even agriculture. Digital money is taking its first steps. Ant, which will make its IPO, is driving the industry upwards with Alibaba and Tencent.
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22 September 2020