China leads APAC ecommerce doubling to US$858 billion by 2018: Forrester

The five countries whose online retail spending nearly equals that of the US and Western Europe are China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Australia, according to Forrester's "Asia Pacific Online Retail Forecast, 2013 To 2018".

Those five should see combined ecommerce spending more than double from US$398 billion today to $858 billion in 2018. 

China, of course, is the engine powering the growth. The number of mainland online buyers will exceed the total population of the US in 2014, according to Forrester. And in 2018, China’s online retail market will reach $672 billion, seven times larger than Japan’s $96 billion and more than 20 times larger than South Korea’s $32 billion. India, in contrast, is likely to experience slower growth due to infrasturcture challenges, with online retail revenue reaching just $16 billion by 2018.

The report also details the rise of mobile devices as conduits for an increasing percentage of online retail sales. For example, in 2012, China’s Taobao and Tmall saw total revenue from mobile hit 7 per cent, up from 1.7 per cent in 2011. On Singles’ Day in November, that number reached 21 per cent. And in Japan, according to the report, Rakuten, the country's largest online shopping mall, disclosed that mobile already accounts for 25 per cent of total ecommerce spending.