The accounts made by the United Nations Development Trade Unit (UNCTAD) predict that sales related to e-commerce have reached $ 25.6 billion globally, compared to the previous year's 23.8 billion.
According to the analysis, the estimated value of ecommerce sales for 2018, which includes business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sales, was equivalent to 30% of world GDP.
The B2B sector represented 21 bilies of the total value (83%), while B2C was valued at 4.4, bilies, an increase of 16% compared to 2017. Cross border sales were responsible for 404 billion in 2018, rising 7% compared to the previous year.
The United States continued to dominate the world market, followed by Japan and China. The top of the biggest ecommerce companies was led by the Chinese company Alibaba, followed by the American company Amazon. The top 5 was completed, in that order, with the Chinese company JD.com and the North American companies Expedia and eBay.
A quarter of the world's population shopped online
UNCTAD estimates that 1.45 billion people made online purchases in 2018 – or, say, a quarter of the world's population aged 15 and over. The value represents an increase of 9% compared to the numbers of 2017.
China was the country with the largest number of cyber consumers: 610 million. The report's data also reveals that, although many buy mainly in national stores, about 330 million chose to shop on websites in other countries.
The share of cross-border cyber consumers has thus increased from 17% in 2016 to 23% in 2018.
