China is the largest digital market in the world, leading all countries in terms of ecommerce, mcommerce and social commerce. It’s also home to many of the largest ecommerce conglomerates, including Alibaba and JD.com, who are generating sales at a scale that far exceeds that of companies in the US—including Amazon.

Even though digital ad spending in Latin America tilts toward display, advertisers should keep search on their radar as retail ecommerce adoption surges in “other” emerging markets—like Colombia, Chile and Peru (22.6%)—as well as Mexico (20.9%).

In a tumultuous year for advertising, every market we cover except China will experience a decline in ad spending, and Google will see its first ever contraction in digital ad revenues.

Singles' Day, which took place last month, registered another record-breaking year. Annual sales growth on leading ecommerce platforms Alibaba and JD.com rose 85.6% and 32.8%, to RMB 498.2 billion ($72.1 billion) and RMB 271.5 billion ($ 39.3 billion) respectively.

Growth of retail sales in China is declining, due to economic and geopolitical challenges, and will not overtake the US until 2021. But retail ecommerce has continued to flourish in some surprising ways under these current circumstances.

Among holiday shopping events in China, many outside the country have probably only heard of Singles’ Day. However, 618—which ecommerce giant JD.com launched to commemorate the company’s founding day—is gaining popularity. And given the global interest in a post-pandemic retail rebound, this year’s event was particularly worthy of attention.

China’s Singles’ Day is no longer just a discount shopping event, as participating digital giants are now leveraging livestreams, new product launches, and novel technologies to enhance customer engagement and the buying experience.

This report explores our latest forecast for time spent with media in China, and how the coronavirus pandemic will impact our forecast for 2020 and beyond.

Of the $62.55 billion spent on digital advertising in China this year, at least 80% will go toward mobile formats. This report includes our latest ad spending and time spent with media forecasts for China.

eMarketer senior analyst Bill Fisher hosts senior forecasting analyst Cindy Liu, research analyst Man-Chung Cheung, researcher Xiaodi Xu, and research analyst at Insider Intelligence Matteo Ceurvels to discuss holiday shopping around the world. They talk about the origins of Thanksgiving weekend shopping, why China's Singles' Day is the largest shopping holiday in the world, and how the Buen Fin in Mexico is adapting in 2020.

Even as total worldwide retail sales declined by 3.0% in 2020, retail ecommerce growth boomed to 27.6%. Ecommerce growth will decelerate substantially in 2021 to 14.3% as brick-and-mortar sales recover.

The way consumers in China are shopping for luxury goods is changing amid the pandemic, with more purchases happening locally because of shelter-in-place protocols and travel restrictions.

This year, we expect China’s total retail ecommerce sales will grow more than 30%, reaching nearly $2 trillion—the highest-grossing retail ecommerce market worldwide, according to our latest forecast. Behind China, the US retail ecommerce market will reach $600.63 billion in sales, growing nearly 15% year over year.

Twenty-year-old Chinese ecommerce giant The Alibaba Group is making moves to grow its US B2B business, allowing US-based small and medium-sized sellers to list goods on its B2B marketplace, Alibaba.com.

Unlike Alibaba or JD.com, Pinduoduo relies on its users to leverage their social networks to drive conversions. The more friends and family a shopper can get to buy a product, the lower the price drops for everyone in the group.