In 2021, global ecommerce sales are expected to reach $4.891 trillion. This marks an increase of 14.3 percent from the previous year as the global ecommerce market continues to grow year after year. 

But where is this growth coming from, and who are the largest contributors to the growing global ecommerce size? Here’s a breakdown of the global ecommerce market size by country in 2021.

As the world’s largest ecommerce market, forecasts show that China will be responsible for 52.1 percent of all ecommerce sales worldwide. The $2.78 trillion it’s expected to generate in online sales this year represents a strong 21.0 percent year-over-year growth. What’s more, it’s more than the total market size of the next nine on the list of the top ten largest ecommerce markets.

Not only does China have the biggest portion of global ecommerce size and sales, but it also has quite a dominant lead as the largest ecommerce market in the world. It even out-ranks the United States, which is in second place. 

The US ecommerce market size in 2021 is forecast at $843.15 billion—less than a third of that of China’s. This is quite a remarkable feat for China, considering that it only surpassed the US as the world’s largest ecommerce market less than a decade ago. 

The US ecommerce market size’s growth rate also pales in comparison to China’s. From 2020 to 2021, an increase of 6.1 percent in ecommerce sales is projected.

After China and the US, the country with the third-largest ecommerce market size is the United Kingdom. Total ecommerce sales in the UK are expected to fall by 6.3 percent from $180.39 billion in 2020 to $169.02 billion in 2021. 

Two other Asian countries wrap up the list of the five-largest ecommerce markets: Japan is expected to grow 2.0 percent and bring in $144.08 billion in ecommerce sales, while South Korea is forecast to grow 9.0 percent to $120.56 billion.

As it stands, three out of the five biggest ecommerce markets are in Asia. Coupled with the fact that the Asia Pacific region makes up 62.6 percent of the global ecommerce size, this is perhaps a reflection of the region’s ecommerce potential. This makes it an important market for ecommerce store owners to focus their efforts on.

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