China Online Spending Power Unmasked
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China’s Internet sales are surging as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and rivals lure more of the nation’s 618 million users to shop online, suggesting conventional retail-sales figures understate the strength of consumer demand.
Online retail sales, first reported by the statistics bureau in April, jumped 52 percent in the first four months of 2014 from a year earlier, compared with a 12 percent gain in the broader gauge that represented the weakest start to a year since