China ranked first in the world for online retail trade

The report was published prior to the World Internet Conference to be held in Wuzhen, China, from 16-18 December, according to the people.cn website.

The total number of netizens in China reached an estimated figure of 668 million — the world’s largest online population. “The four Chinese companies which made it to the list are Alibaba, Tencent, JD.Com and Baidu,” said head of Chinese Academy of Cyberspace, Yang Shuzhen.

China’s online retail sales skyrocketed at 2.8 trillion yuan in 2014, as reported by the en.people website. But the figures have more than doubled in 2015, with total transaction reaching 2.95 trillion yuan.

In the month of November, an online shopping sale was conducted by Alibaba which recorded a sale of 91.2 billion yuan, according to the report.

Internet has been the biggest boon to the Chinese economy, contributing 7% to the GDP.

According to statistics, the number of people who shop online now is 307 million.

China’s cross-border retail transactions reached 449.2 billion yuan in 2014 alone, people.cn reported. China has 321 Internet-related companies (listed) whose market value was estimated at 7.85 trillion yuan—equivalent to 25.6% overall stock market value, according to the website.

Since the last year, online sales in China have increased 44%.

Mobile internet is also rapidly developing in China. According to statistics, there were 594 million phone users who accounted for 88.9% of all netizens, as reported by people.cn.

The development of mobile internet services in China has also brought a boost to travel industry, as well as car rental and medical services.