Online merchants in China are spearheading increased shipments to new emerging markets, as more vendors use PayPal's global e-commerce payments service. A survey by PayPal, a subsidiary of internet shopping and auctions giant eBay, found that large online retailers from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan on its platform generated more robust sales growth in South America and eastern Europe than in developed markets. In the 12 months to June, these PayPal users recorded 96 per cent growth in Argentina, 72 per cent in Israel, 71 per cent Ukraine and 69 per cent Russia. By comparison, they achieved 57 per cent growth in Japan, 42 per cent Britain, 40 per cent Germany, 25 per cent the United States, 24 per cent Canada and 23 per cent France. There are 3,709 large Chinese PayPal merchants which sell on their own or other websites, but not on eBay.com which recorded 35 per cent annual sales growth during the period. Meanwhile, the number of large internet retailers in the country using eBay.com to sell overseas and have PayPal as their primary payment method reached 3,835 in the same period. These firms posted annual sales growth of 68 per cent. Combined, there were 7,544 large vendors on the eBay platform and PayPal users outside of eBay.com in the country with annual sales of US$100,000 or more. "One of the most successful business strategies for any Chinese exporter is to open an online store on eBay and accept PayPal as their preferred payment method," said Rohan Mahadevan, the vice-president for Asia at PayPal. Californian-based PayPal's service, which supports 25 currencies, has more than 117 million active accounts and is available in 190 markets. The company posted revenue of US$1.3 billion in the third quarter, representing 40 per cent of eBay's US$3.4 billion income during the period.
