Many of the national and regional rankings for retail ecommerce sales and growth have changed little since 2020.

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.

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.

The US retail market has been the largest in the world for at least a century, and although China was inevitably on track to claim this mantle from the US relatively soon, we did not expect a transition point to come as early as 2020.

The Chinese government’s massive spending, lending, and financing activities purposefully accrued benefits to the corporate world rather than to consumers.

It’s not surprising news, given the app’s strong track record of ecommerce experiments—and the fact that its Chinese counterpart Douyin has had in-app shopping features for years now. If the feature rolls out more widely, it would reshape the app in a few ways:. Social commerce could become a lot more central on TikTok than on Facebook and Instagram.

Three of the four largest ecommerce companies in the world are based in China—Alibaba, JD.com, and Pinduoduo (PDD)—and they are all still delivering impressive annual sales increases.

According to a March 2020 YouGov survey, 85% of internet users in China and 83% of those in Hong Kong said they had avoided crowded public places in the past two weeks. Just more than a quarter (27%) of those in the US and 14% in the UK said the same. A February 2020 Coresight Research survey also showed that 27.5% of US internet users were avoiding public places, on par with YouGov’s findings.

Sustainability is increasingly top of mind for consumers in China. Many are making lifestyle changes to address the issue, spurred by the country’s many environmental catastrophes, as well as the government’s recent pledge to reduce emissions. And more than ever, shoppers expect brands to offer products and services with eco-friendliness in mind—and for the right price.

In a signal that it has flattened the curve, China reported zero new domestically transmitted cases of COVID-19 in the mainland last month, though that may slightly change as there have been cases brought back by overseas returnees. (Additionally, there is some speculation around the accuracy of these reports.) Editors Note: Since this article's original publication, one county in China has gone into total lockdown again amid fear of a second wave of COVID-19 cases.

Online shopping festivals in China are often a bellwether for new trends, a must-see event where marketers get inspired by novel shopping ideas. At this past 618, JD.com offered consumers the option to purchase its proprietary products using Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP), the country’s emerging digital currency.

Though virtually unknown outside of China, a new crop of local direct-to-consumer brands are making a name for themselves at home—and even outperforming some of the major foreign players.

2020 was a tumultuous year to say the least, but as the adage goes, in crisis there is opportunity. This idea is literally embedded in the Chinese word for “crisis” (危机): Its second character means opportunity. China’s populace appeared to have embodied that spirit. In a challenging year, entrepreneurs and regulators alike worked together to steady the ship and found ways to restore some normalcy through resilience, digital innovations, and timely policies.

China’s retail sector has been on a steady path to recovery over the past few months. According to June data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in China, retail sales experienced a year-over-year drop of 1.8%, reaching $485.30 billion (RMB3.353 trillion). That was an increase of 1 percentage point over the prior month.

The effects of the coronavirus pandemic are turbocharging digital transformation in China's retail sector—and the country is already leading the world in terms of retail ecommerce sales and penetration.

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.

The loss, the first since the China-based ecommerce giant went public in 2014, resulted from China’s antitrust regulators fining the company $2.78 billion for taking advantage of its leading position in China’s ecommerce market. More on this: The etailer still posted impressive retail revenue growth and cracked 1 billion users despite the regulatory attention.

In-store shopping will remain a crucial part of the retail sales funnel in China, even as ecommerce players continue to rack up record gross merchandise value (GMV). Pre-pandemic, ecommerce was already disrupting brick-and-mortar retail, but over the past year, retailers began to innovate more offline, leveraging new and existing technology.