China's e-commerce market hits $1.2 trillion in H1

SHANGHAI - China's e-commerce market saw strong growth in the first half of this year despite economic headwinds, according to a report released Monday.

E-commerce in the world's second-largest economy reached 7.63 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) in the January-June period, up 30.4 percent from a year earlier, the China E-Commerce Research Center said in a report.

Business-to-business (B2B) was up 28.8 percent year-on-year, at 5.8 trillion yuan. The online retail sales, which include business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) rose 48.7 percent to 1.61 trillion yuan.

Cross-border e-commerce reached 2 trillion yuan in H1, up 42.8 percent year on year, accounting for 17.3 percent of China's total trade volume.

As of the end of 2014, more than 2.5 million people worked directly in e-commerce and more than 18 million indirectly.