China's mobile e-commerce market has risen 104% to $7.2bn, says iResearch Global
The figure takes into account gaming, marketing, value added services and mobile shopping. Wide adoption of smartphone and tablet devices contributed greatly to the rise, as well as a concerted effort by companies and advertisers to enhance their mobile offerings.
By the end of 2013, China had more than 500m mobile internet users, equivalent to roughly 80% of the nation's 618m internet users.
China's three online giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent continued to invest heavily in mobile technology throughout the year. Baidu, the nation's most widely used search engine, saw revenues from mobile search increase to 30% of total revenue in Q2, compared to 20% in Q4 last year.
Tencent also formed a partnership with JD.com, an Amazon-style retailer, in a bid to erode Alibaba's' near-monopolistic 80% market share. Alibaba also took control of mobile specialist UCWeb earlier this year.
The report claims more companies are investing in online-to-offline (O2O) services to capitalise on mobile usage. It also speculates that fierce competition and low barriers to entry will create difficult conditions for newcomers, but industry stalwarts will also need to adapt to survive. "To develop innovative products that meet users' special demands," the report claims, "is the only way to attract new users."