Alibaba Sales hit 1 Trill
This week Alibaba Group, who own China's leading eCommerce platforms Taobao, TMall and Alibaba, announced that it's online retail sales will hit 1 Trillion RMB ($158 billion USD) this year. That's big, much bigger than eBay's $60 billion last year, and further evidence that Chinese consumers love to shop online. If the web, mobiles and eCommerce isn't a key part of your China strategy, you've got a bit of work to do. But don't let that work distract you from the most important thing you can do this week - catching up with the latest news, views and insights into China's market and Chinese consumers ;-). Enjoy...
Understanding Chinese Consumers
How To Target A Diverse Marketplace With Chinese Language Variations: Brands & intellectual property in China, and the power of reaching Chinese consumers via social media.
Rethinking The Oreo For Chinese Consumers: Kraft Foods example of how they tailored Oreos for the Chinese market and they're taking off.
China's Favorite Affordable Luxury Lifestyle Brand: Starbucks: Starbucks is a pin up example of how western businesses have infiltrated China's middle class. Starbucks is currently trending at number 5 on Weibo, a short rundown on their success and techniques.
Waiting For Chinese Consumers To Power Growth: A fairly broad summary of China's consumer growth quoting a UBS report from Shanghai Daily.
Social Media
China Social Media Usage Analysed: An infographic showing Chinese social media user data translated into English on chinaskinny.com. As a sign of China's growing incomes, household incomes of the top-4 networks' users are now over $15,000 USD.
China's Social Media Boom: Chinese Internet users are much more likely to use social media that other countries netizens - 91% in the past 6-months compared with 67% in the US. A good McKinsey report.
Social Media Explosion Gives Brands A Second Chance In China: Social Media like Weibo is giving brands that have failed to crack China a 2nd change.
eCommerce
Winning At E-Commerce In China: Nielsen's high level eCommerce strategies for China backed up by some stats, including 85% of Chinese consumers regularly share their online purchasing experiences on Social Media.
Mobile Phones
China Smartphone Market To Overtake U.S. In 2012: Android mobiles selling for less than $100 in China helps soaring growth in smartphones - China will have more smartphones than any other market this year.
Fashion
Chinese Fashion Brands Look West: Chinese fashion retailers expanding to the west - and hoping it will drive a few sales back home as well. Bosideng is spending £35m on it's Oxford Street flagship store to kick things off.
Luxury Products
Luxury Firms Lavish Perks On China VIPs: Anyone for an all-expenses paid camel polo tournament in Mongolia? The lengths some firms are going to wooing luxury consumers in China.
Look How Much More Expensive Luxury Items Got In China This Year: Poor rich Chinese, luxury goods prices in China have increased 38% above CPI since 2007. Good news if you're in the market for a private jet or big boat, they're getting cheaper.
That's the skinny for the week!
If you've missed earlier news or need to learn more, there's a trove of information about Chinese consumers in prior China Skinny Weeklys right here. You can have this delivered to your inbox each week by subscribing for email updates, or if social media is more your thing, please follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or Google+, or subscribe to our RSS feed. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future articles, please let us know.
