18 Alibaba Statistics or the Chinese Amazon by the Numbers
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Dubbed the “Chinese Amazon,” the Alibaba Group has expanded rapidly over the past few years. Not only is the conglomerate China’s leading ecommerce company, but it’s also making strides all over the world, Alibaba statistics reveal.
Here’s the deal:
In a short span of time, it has expanded into areas like cloud computing services, payment services, and many more.
As a result, the ecommerce giant has enjoyed exceptional growth since its launch decades ago and has opened employment opportunities for many people.
But don’t just take our word for it:
We’ve got the stats to prove it!
Without further ado, let’s dive right in.
Mind-blowing Alibaba Stats (Editor’s Choice)
- Alibaba’s projected earnings for 2020 are $75 billion.
- Alibaba Annual Sales in 2019 made $54 billion in revenue.
- Alibaba’s profits grew by 144% between 2017 and 2019.
- Alibaba aims to hit a target of $1.4 trillion in GMV by 2024.
- Alibaba is expected to serve one billion customers by 2024.
- Alibaba contributed to 58.2% of China’s ecommerce Sales in 2018.
- Alibaba spent 22 billion yuan (about $3 billion) on marketing activities in 2019.
General Alibaba Statistics
1. 2020 looks promising for Alibaba, as it’s projected to make $75 billion.
(Trefis)
Alibaba sales statistics forecast the company will make $75 billion in earnings this year. A big chunk (65%) comes from the China Commerce Revenue Alibaba segment, whereas another 12% is predicted to come from the China Wholesale and Other Revenue segment.
2. $54 billion was Alibaba’s total revenue for 2019.
(SCMP)
Back in 2011, during the first few years of Alibaba’s establishment, the group only had a small profit of 11.9 billion yuan. Fast forward to 2016, and Alibaba revenue reached an impressive 101.1 billion yuan, with figures then doubling in 2018.
This upwards trend continues until 2019 when the group hit 376.8 billion yuan in profits, which is equivalent to $54 billion. Overall, the company experienced a 39% growth in revenue for 2019.
3. Alibaba growth was an impressive 144% between 2017 and 2019.
(Trefis)
Alibaba Group revenue profits have skyrocketed since 2017. Because of this, predictions for 2020 and beyond are bright for the ecommerce giant, with a 78% increase projected by 2021, bringing Alibaba revenues to a whopping $100 billion that year.
4. $1.4 trillion is Alibaba’s target in gross merchandise volume (GMV) by the end of 2024.
(Market Watch)
According to the group’s five-year general income growth plan, the company is working to hit the 1 billion active users mark to boost profits and $1.4 trillion in GMV. This figure is quite astonishing when you keep in mind the 2015 sales of only 76 billion yuan.
5. Alibaba aims to serve one billion customers by 2024, in accordance with the five-year plan.
(Alibaba Group)
Daniel Zhang, CEO and Group Executive Chairman of Alibaba, spoke at the company’s annual Investor Day in Hangzhou in 2019, revealing the company’s impressive five-year plan.
Here’s the scoop:
As of June 2019, Alibaba had 730 million active customers coming from its China consumer business segment.
Then, there are another 130 million active customers in its international retail commerce business. Altogether, the company has 860 million active customers worldwide.
6. Around 900 million is the number of active Alipay users in China.
(Alibaba Group)
Altogether, Alibaba Group and Ant Financial serve approximately 960 million customers in China. According to Alibaba statistics, 85% of Alibaba China retail comes from developed areas, whereas there is only a 40% penetration rate in less developed areas.
What this means is:
There’s still plenty of room for tremendous growth and opportunities to improve more lives.
7. From 2018 to 2020, Alibaba annual revenue stats show the group experienced a rapid e-growth of 79.9%.
(Forbes)
By 2020, Alibaba hit an e-revenue of $41.7 billion. To put this into perspective, we can compare it with Amazon’s e-growth of 50.4% between 2018 and 2020 and its 2020 e-revenue of $350.2 billion.
Along with this growth, Alibaba subscriptions are also expected to rise by a massive 60.4% from 2018 to 2020. According to the research, Amazon also had a good run between those years, enjoying an 80.3% growth.
Comparing the two giants side by side reveals a ratio of Amazon’s 6.6 times increase versus Alibaba’s 7.7 times increase over the past few years.
8. Alibaba contributed 58.2% to China’s ecommerce sales in 2018.
(Statista)
Alibaba market share in China has been and still is the major contributor to China’s ecommerce sales. Since 2018, over 85% of China’s retail ecommerce sales come from up to ten major players in the market.
Nonetheless, Alibaba dominates by remaining at the top spot year after year. In 2018, 58.2% of retail ecommerce sales in China came from the ecommerce giant. JD.com comes in second place with 16.3%, followed by Pinduoduo with 5.2%, Suning with 1.9%, and vip.com with 1.8%.
9. Alibaba acquired Cainiao Network in 2018 for $807 million and is currently processing over 100 million orders a day.
(ZDNet)
Cainiao Network is a logistics business Alibaba bought to reduce logistics costs from its current 15% to 5%. The group also aims to provide better shipping services with shorter waiting days that also has the capacity to process more than 100 million orders a day.
In line with this expansion, the group set aside 100 billion yuan for its five-year plan to boost its logistics network. Cainiao has since been processing 100 million packages a day and brings down average shipping time from 70 days to 10 days in certain countries.
10. 22 billion yuan was spent on marketing activities in 2019, statistics about Alibaba confirm.
(Statista)
Like most large companies, Alibaba understands investments in sales and marketing are crucial for success and overall brand image. So, in 2019, the group pumped 22 billion yuan into promotional and advertising campaigns all over. This was the highest the group has spent on ads, up from 2.02 billion yuan in 2014.
11. In 2019, core commerce was Alibaba’s biggest source of income, contributing to 85.8% of Alibaba revenue.
(Investopedia)
Here’s the Alibaba revenue breakdown:
Alibaba’s core commerce sector made $48.2 billion in revenue for 2018. This large amount contributed a large chunk of its total revenue. This revenue share has increased by 1.2% from a close 84.6% by the end of the fiscal year 2017.
12. In Q3 2017, Alibaba hit one million customers for its cloud business.
(ZDNet)
Alibaba’s cloud business customer base exceeded one million during the quarter ending in June 2017. That quarter, the company’s customer base grew by 137,000, bringing the total clientele to 1.01 million.
Thanks to this, the Alibaba Cloud Business Unit grew by an impressive 96%, hitting 2.43 billion yuan (around $359 million). Alibaba Cloud offers a whole suite of cloud services, including management and application services, database, storage, and much more.
13. Alibaba’s digital media and entertainment division brings the third-largest source of revenue consisting of 6.4% of its total revenue during the 2019 fiscal year, according to Alibaba statistics for 2019.
(Investopedia)
Alibaba’s digital media and entertainment division generates income via services to customer management and fees from membership subscriptions, making a significant contribution to Alibaba growth rate. This sector exists as a strategy to drive more revenue outside of its core commerce business.
Here’s the scoop:
In 2019, the segment made $3.6 billion in revenue, contributing 6.4% to its total profits. However, this percentage has decreased by 9.3% during the 2017 fiscal year. Overall, the Alibaba digital media and entertainment segment lost $2.4 billion in 2019.
Even More Interesting Alibaba Statistics
14. As of March 2019, Alibaba had employed more employees than Facebook and Yahoo combined.
(Statista)
The rapid growth of the ecommerce and m-commerce giant has played a significant role in creating employment opportunities. More specifically, the Alibaba number of employees stood at an impressive one million by the end of March 2019.
15. Women make up a big percentage of Alibaba’s workforce (47%).
(Business Insider)
Alibaba founder Jack Ma attributes the company’s growing success to employing more women in his workforce. Click To TweetHere’s the thing:
As of 2019, women made up 34% of Alibaba’s senior management. Additionally, almost half (45%) of Alibaba employees were younger than 30 years old. At one point, almost half of Alibaba’s total workforce was made up of women.
16. Alibaba’s Singles Day 2018 recorded 256,000 transactions per second, Alibaba trade statistics reveal.
(CNBC)
Alibaba’s Singles Day falls every year on November 11 (11.11) when customers can get their hands on massive discounts for a wide variety of items from electronics to cars. During its first event back in 2009 held on its Tmall shopping platform, Alibaba hit $7.8 million in sales.
Fast forward to 2018, and Alibaba’s Singles Day sales exceeded $30.8 billion within the 24-hour shopping event. During this year, sales hit the $1 billion mark within one minute and 25 seconds of event launch. This record even outdid its 2017 event, which made $25.3 billion.
It gets better:
17. Alibaba Singles’ Day 2019 brought in $38 billion, Alibaba facts reveal.
(Business Insider)
Alibaba’s Singles’ Day gets bigger and better every year in profits as well as in extravagance. That year, the event sold around 30% more products than the previous year, around 5,153 times more than the first-ever Single’s Day, which was 52 million yuan.
In 2019, Alibaba held the Tmall Collection Show, which was described as the 11.11 opening show which featured extravagant performances.
Some memorable moments include Johnnie Walker’s Game of Thrones theatrical dance to promote its new line of whiskeys. The sanitary pad brand Whisper was also in the spotlight, bringing in popular virtual singer Luo Tianyi.
18. Alibaba’s live streaming platform Taobao Live increased Taobao sales by 150% from the years 2017 to 2019.
(China Internet Watch)
Live streaming has become an important advertising tool for brands and retailers worldwide. It seems customers respond better to live streaming and also spend longer watch time, increasing the probability of successful conversions.
So, it should come as no surprise that Taobao Live is becoming increasingly popular in China where 10% of Taobao Live live-streaming hosts come from Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China.
FAQ
Q: How many customers does Alibaba have?
Alibaba numbers show that its customer base expands with each year. In 2013, 231 million active customers were recorded; this figure climbed to 334 million in 2014, 407 million in 2015, 443 million in 2016, 515 million in 2017, 636 million in 2018, and finally an impressive 960 million active customers in 2019.
The group’s five-year plan now aims to exceed the 1 billion customer mark by this year.
Q: How many products does Alibaba have?
Alibaba has 2.8 million online storefronts and over 5,900 different product categories.
Q: How much does Alibaba make a year
The Alibaba annual report shows that the company’s revenue is rapidly increasing over the years. In 2011, the group revenue was at 11.9 billion yuan, climbing to 20 billion in 2012, 34.5 billion yuan in 2013, 52.5 billion yuan in 2014, and 76.2 billion yuan in 2015.
Then, Alibaba revenue in 2016 was 101.1 billion yuan, which jumped to 158.2 billion yuan in 2017, and another jump to 250.2 billion yuan in 2018, and finally the impressive 376.8 billion recorded for 2019.
Q: How many packages does Alibaba ship per day?
Alibaba acquired a controlling stake in logistics business Cainiao Network for $807 million in efforts to reduce logistics cost while providing more efficient delivery services.
Cainiao now processes a whopping 100 million packages a day and has brought down shipping times from an average of 70 days to 10 days in certain countries.
In Closing…
According to Alibaba statistics, Alibaba’s future in both the Chinese and global markets looks promising due to its rapid growth.
Year after year, the group seems to always exceed its expectations, setting even bigger targets for the next years to come.
What’s more:
With the group’s 2024 projections that are already close underway, it will be exciting to see how it plays out for the ecommerce giant.
Have you ever used any of Alibaba’s online retail services?
Sources: