Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba overtook America’s Walmart to be world’s largest retailer, according to Stationery News.
With an expected overturn of $490 billion in 2015-16, the Chinese retailing brand is the global leader in the sector.
The dethroning of Walmart comes on the basis of measurement by annual gross merchandise volume (GMV) on its China retail marketplaces, based on official documents submitted on April 5.
GMV is the total value of all products sold through an online platform, and is different from the company’s revenue, which would typically be calculated as a sum of the commission it earns from sales on its platform.
The claim was backed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which had evaluated Alibaba data relevant to its group GMV.
A fortnight ago, Alibaba’s executive vice chairman Joe Tsai said that with 10 days remaining in its year to March, Alibaba’s China retail marketplace platforms had surpassed RMB3 trillion in GMV.
The company is yet to release its trading figures for the year 2016.
A recent ranking by Investopedia shows that WalMart, founded in 1945, generated an annual worldwide revenue of $485.7 billion in 2015, making it last year’s biggest retailer.
In a China Daily report, the Alibaba group said that it “used 13 years to demonstrate the power of a different business model compared with brick-and-mortar retailers.”
With an expected overturn of 490 billion dollars in 2015-16, the Chinese retailing brand is the global leader in the sector
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