Beijing, Sep 21 (IANS): China's e-commerce market has hit the $1.2 trillion-mark in the first half of this year despite economic losses, according to a report released on Monday.
E-commerce in the world's second-largest economy reached $1.2 trillion in the January-June period, up 30.4 percent from a year earlier, the China E-Commerce Research Centre said in its report.
Business-to-business (B2B) was up 28.8 percent year-on-year, Xinhua news agency reported.
The online retail sales, which include business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) rose 48.7 percent.
Cross-border e-commerce reached up 42.8 percent year on year, accounting for 17.3 percent of China's total trade volume.
As of the end of 2014, over 2.5 million people worked directly in e-commerce and more than 18 million indirectly.