Publication date: 18 Nov 2024
IDC: Ecommerce Channels Outpace Offline Sales During China’s “11.11” Shopping Festival
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BEIJING, 18 November 2024 – According to IDC, this year’s “11.11” shopping festival in China saw accelerated growth, with ecommerce channels outpacing offline sales. With the introduction of the national package of policies to boost consumption, the growth of the electronics consumption market has been directly promoted.
China’s Action Plan for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in played a crucial role by incentivizing consumer spending across three directions and 11 product categories of "trade-in" to directly encourage increased consumer spending. Through this policy, consumers in Beijing and other places benefited from discounts of up to 15%-20% on select items, available through major ecommerce platforms and manufacturers' official websites. and select offline stores.
Surge in Device Upgrades, Strong Gaming PC Sales, and Back-to-School Demand Accelerate the '11.11' Growth Cycle
The August release of the highly anticipated Black Myth: Wukong elevated the popularity of domestic triple-A games, sparking strong demand in the gaming PC market and driving sales through late September and into early October. Additionally, the back-to-school season in the third quarter aligned with a new device replacement cycle in the global market. This combination of factors advanced the "11.11" shopping period, bringing it forward this year to October 15 .
A deviation from historical patterns, PC consumer market shipments remained stable in September compared to August, bucking the usual seasonal decline. Notably, JD.com recorded a 100% surge in online shipments for some manufacturers in the Beijing area during early September - highlighting the strength of consumer demand leading up to the "11.11" period.
Ecommerce Leads PC Market Shipments, Outpacing Offline Sales During the “11.11” Period
China's PC market shipments are expected to reach 40.3 million units in 2024, of which 21.3 million will be sold online and 19 million offline. Ecommerce shipments accounted for up to 45% of overall PC shipments.. In the consumer market, most of the package of policy benefits, including trade-in, is collected online as online transactions are more transparent and consumers tend to buy online. In the business market, organizations need to deal with policy details such as account period terms when organizing procurement, and online platforms are also more convenient. This directly increased the activity of ecommerce platforms during the "11.11" period.
October Mobile Phone Launches Drive Stronger Growth Than PC Sales During “11.11”
Driven by various consumer factors, this year mobile phone brands including Huawei, Honor, vivo, and OPPO launched new products in October. These brands aimed to showcase product advantages to consumers ahead of "11.11" to consolidate or even expand their market share during the shopping festival. According to IDC data, China's smartphone market grew by 3% in Q3 2024, with an expected 5% growth for the full year. Of these shipments, 30.4% were through offline channels, while 48.6% were online, reflecting strong growth driven by ecommerce. During the "11.11" period, the mobile phone market outperformed the PC market in shipments.
Leading Ecommerce Companies Sustain Tablet Market Growth During “11.11”
Tablets are mainly sold online, while large ecommerce companies continue to maintain their advantage. IDC data shows that in the fourth quarter of 2024 (24Q4), online retail channel shipments in the tablet market will account for 47.5%. Shipments of tablets sold through large ecommerce companies increased by about 5% year-over-year in October. Thanks to online advantages, the tablet market performed better than the PC market during the "11.11" period.
Antonio Wang, Vice President of IDC Global and China believes that, “Overall, driven by the package of policies, the wave of replacement, the back-to-school season and other factors, the "11.11" in 2024 shows three major trends. The first is the early market growth cycle, with "11.11" as the node, the market growth was faster in mid-to-late October and gradually slowed down in November. Second, online channels benefit from convenient payment and other factors, and the growth of its shipments is faster than offline. Finally, although mobile phones, tablets, and PCs have all benefited from policy subsidies, the growth of mobile phones and tablets shipments has been better than that of PCs.
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