TikTok’s sister app Douyin says GMV for e-commerce business grew 80 per cent last year
- The company said it will invest 10 billion yuan this year to help merchants grow their business on the short video platform
- ByteDance is a latecomer to the e-commerce industry, as online shopping started to take off in China in the 2000s
Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok that has been aggressively pushing online shopping as a way to convert eyeballs into revenues, said its gross merchandise volume (GMV) on the platform grew 80 per cent last year.
Douyin’s owner, Beijing-based ByteDance, set up a dedicated e-commerce unit in 2020 but has never publicly released the total GMV figure. US news media The Information reported in January that the GMV last year was 1.41 trillion yuan (US$202.3 billion), citing two sources.
Wei Wenwen, president of Douyin’s e-commerce unit, said on Tuesday that the company will invest 10 billion yuan this year to help merchants grow their business on the platform, which she said saw GMV growth of 80 per cent last year. Wei, who spoke at Douyin’s Ecosystem Conference held in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, added that the company has “confidence in future growth”.
That is in spite of slower growth from 2021, when GMV more than tripled from a very low base in 2020, when the e-commerce business started.
The emergence of Douyin as a major e-commerce player has changed China’s online shopping landscape and challenged the dominant positions of Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com. ByteDance is also using its experience at home to help TikTok generate revenue in overseas markets.
Douyin’s turnover is still a fraction of established platforms such as Alibaba and JD.com. Alibaba’s Chinese retail businesses, including e-commerce and digital media, achieved GMV of nearly 8 trillion yuan for the year ended March 2022, while JD.com reported GMV of roughly 3.48 trillion yuan for 2022. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.