Global retail ecommerce sales will decelerate to a 16.5% growth rate in 2020. Even as consumers transitioned en masse to ecommerce during the pandemic, the drag caused by multiple recessions internationally has reduced the overall outlook.

The global retail market will reach $25.038 trillion in 2019, an increase of 4.5% and a slight acceleration in growth vs. the prior year, per our estimates. At the same time, it represents a marked decline from the five years preceding that, when global retail sales grew at rates between 5.7% and 7.5% each year.

But it’s also because of WhatsApp’s investments into the country, including payments and ecommerce through its partnership with JioMart, as well as India’s fast-growing smartphone user base. Aside from Indonesia, the rest of the countries we track in Asia-Pacific will see minimal monthly user growth this year.

The global ecommerce market will rise more than 20% in 2019, despite mounting economic uncertainty and declining consumer spending growth around the world.