According to the statistics released by Chinese consumer auction website Taobao.com, the company's total business volume was over CNY43.31 billion in 2007, which exceeds the business volume of Carrefour and Wal-Mart and makes Taobao.com one of the largest comprehensive markets in China.
The statistics show that users of Taobao.com reached 53 million in 2007 and the average daily expense for each is CNY817, which increased 45.1% compared with CNY563 in 2006.
A representative from Taobao.com said at a press conference that from when the company was founded in 2003 to 2007, Taobao.com used only four years to realize a total business volume of more than CNY40 billion. While the world's top retailer, Wal-Mart, used 29 years to realize a total business volume of US$40 billion. In China's retail market, Taobao.com exceeded Wal-Mart in 2005, and then exceeded Carrefour in 2006. In 2007 its business volume even exceeded the sum of the two retail companies, according to Taobao. From 2006 to 2007, the quarterly increase of Taobao.com was six times of eBay's.
In 2007, Taobao.com's profit mainly came from daily commodities, IT and digital products. The top ten products are clothes, mobile phones, cosmetics, articles for daily use, household appliances, prepaid phone cards, cameras and video cameras, PC and its accessories, laptops and health products.
Taobao.com is a division of Alibaba.com, one of the largest Internet marketplaces in China, bringing buyers and sellers together for Internet sourcing.