CHART OF THE DAY: Alibaba’s Booming Business Is Way Ahead Of eBay

DAVE SMITH

 TECH

 AUG. 28, 2014

China’s enormous e-commerce site Alibaba is a huge deal; its $200 billion valuation exceeds that of Facebook ($150 billion) and Amazon ($137 billion). The company is expected to go public in less than a month, so we have new data about the company based on its F-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which became public on Tuesday.

Based on data charted for us by Business Insider Intelligence, Alibaba comprised 76% of all mobile retail purchases in China last year, and each one of the 231 million active users on its sites in 2013 made about 49 purchases each.

But here’s the kicker: The value of all of the merchandise sold over Alibaba’s sites was roughly four times greater than that of eBay. And as the chart shows, one-third of those purchases came from mobile devices. Comparatively, Nielsen says only 27% of online purchases made in North America come from mobile devices.

In other words, Alibaba has an incredibly impressive mobile presence that will continue growing for the foreseeable future, which should bode well for its impending IPO.