Q2/2020 - UNCTAD
Virtual e-commerce week, Geneva, 27 – 30. April 2020
The UNCTAD eWeek event with dozens of workshops and plenaries was held as a virtual meeting from 27 April to 1 March 2020. On 27 April 2020, UNCTAD published its annual report on the development of electronic commerce. According to the latest figures of UNCTAD, global e-commerce sales amounted to USD 25.6 trillion in 2018. This is an increase of 8 percent on 2017. The coronavirus crisis has accelerated the uptake of digital commerce, said Shamika Sirimanne, Director of UNCTAD’s Technology and Logistics Division, when she presented the report. According to Sirimanne, further increase, possibly in the two-digit range, can be expected for 2019 and 2020. Accounting for USD 21 trillion, business-to-business (B2B) made up the largest share in 2018. Business-to-consumer trade (B2C9 accounted for USD 4.4 trillion. The three leading e-commerce states were the United States (USD 8.6 trillion), Japan (USD 3.3 trillion) and China (USD 2.3 trillion). Germany with USD 722 billion held rank seven. All in all, more than 1.4 trillion people do online shopping today. With 610 trillion online shoppers, China features the largest number of e-consumers worldwide[1].