Sceptics wary of Alibaba take on its meteoric rise

Watching the number of scooters and flat-bed tricycles whizzing around the streets of Beijing bearing goods from Alibaba’s various ecommerce units, the figure below seems very possible, but it’s still causing some raised eyebrows.

This week, Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma caused a stir by saying that his ecommerce company does three trillion yuan (€412 billion) of gross merchandise value a year.

This works out to about 4 per cent of all household consumption in China. Or almost 12 per cent of all consumption, based on an exchange rate of 6.35 yuan to the greenback, or 7.27 yuan to the euro.

“All in all, China’s economy has immense potential,” Ma wrote. “It will not be easy, but China’s future ‘economic miracle’ will lie in its ability to boost productivity and its use of big data and Internet technology to stimulate domestic consumption and generate exponential development opportunities.”

Since then, some analysts have voiced scepticism.

There is no doubt that Alibaba is big in China. The company reckons it has 367 million users, and that they spend around $1,056 (€922) per person annually.

The GDP of China in 2014 was $10.3 trillion (€9 trillion). And, as mentioned elsewhere, the population of China is closing in on 1.4 billion. This makes for GDP per capita of roughly $7,350 (€6,420).

Where the analysts see problems is in the country's private consumption rate. The World Bank estimates a domestic consumption rate of about 36 per cent of gross domestic product, the reason being that China's saving rate is so high.

By this calculation, household consumption per capita is roughly $2,650 (€2,314), according to analyst John Hempton of fund manager Bronte Capital.

So the Alibaba amount of spending per user or $1,056 (€922) is almost 40 per cent of that number.