ByteDance’s Douyin emerges as fast-rising rival to e-commerce giants Alibaba, JD and PDD

The short-video platform saw gross merchandise value rise by 46 per cent in the year ended July 2024, an executive says

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Published: 11:00am, 11 Sep 2024Updated: 11:47am, 11 Sep 2024

ByteDance’s Douyin, the domestic sibling of TikTok, has emerged as a rising contender in the Chinese e-commerce market once dominated by Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com, despite slowing growth.

The Beijing-based short-video platform, which has been aggressively expanding into the online shopping business, increased gross merchandise volume (GMV) by 46 per cent year on year between August 2023 and July 2024, said Wei Wenwen, the president of Douyin’s e-commerce unit, at a company event in Shanghai on Monday.

While that was slower than the 80 per cent growth recorded by Douyin from May 2022 to April 2023, as well as the three-fold jump achieved in 2021 after the launch of its online shopping business in 2020, it still surpassed the recent performances of established shopping sites in China.

Amid a sluggish economy, Alibaba’s flagship marketplaces Taobao and Tmall posted a 5 per cent growth in combined GMV in the fiscal year ended March 2024. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

The ByteDance office in Beijing. Photo: EPA-EFE

PDD Holdings’ Pinduoduo, a budget shopping platform, grew its GMV by less than 30 per cent year on year in the first half of 2024, falling short of analysts’ expectations, according to a report from Chinese media LatePost, citing unnamed sources. PDD did not disclose last year’s GMV figures in its financial report.