Largest ecommerce companies in the world

Trading has come a long way, and thanks to the internet, online shopping is now a go-to for today’s shopper.

Online shopping has grown significantly in the last few years, and from the numbers, we can only expect the market to grow bigger.

So, it is no surprise that some of the biggest companies in the world are eCommerce platforms.

Although some of these companies are enormous names in the industry, a couple of them are still relatively unknown.

Well, here is the list of the largest eCommerce companies in the world by revenue and market capitalization.

List of Largest eCommerce Companies in the World in 2021

Top 10 Largest eCommerce Companies (Ranked by Revenue)

10 biggest e-commerce companies in the world are (sorted by revenue):

  1. Amazon ($386.06 billion)
  2. JD.com ($114.97 billion)
  3. Alibaba ($71.99 billion)
  4. Suning.com ($38.06 billion)
  5. Meituan-Dianping ($17.68 billion)
  6. Wayfair ($14.15 billion)
  7. Otto Group ($14.1 billion)
  8. Rakuten ($13.48 billion)
  9. eBay ($10.27 billion)
  10. Zalando ($7.98 billion)

Largest eCommerce Company #1: Amazon

Amazon Largest Internet CompanyAmazon is undoubtedly the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. The firm started as an online bookseller in 1994 in Washington.

Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, is now one of the richest men in the world, thanks to Amazon Inc.

Today, Amazon has diversified the range of products that it offers to become a leading company in the online retail industry.

It provides a variety of products and services in the AI, digital streaming, and cloud computing industries.

The estimated monthly site traffic is about 2.476 billion visits.

One of Amazon’s gold mines has been Amazon Prime.

This delivery service allows customers to subscribe for unlimited two-day shipping from Amazon.

The company also added some other benefits such as streaming, early access to new book releases, unlimited cloud storage, among others.

Through this service, Amazon has been able to secure over 100 million subscribers globally.

Amazon also boasts of being the biggest eCommerce employer.

The company currently has 1,298,000 employees. Besides, the company generates the highest revenue in the world.

Amazon’s sales in 2020 were worth $386.06 billion, up from 2019’s $280.52 billion (+37.62%).

On 4th September 2018, Amazon reached the $1 trillion market cap to become the most valuable retailer, a position that was previously held by Walmart.

Largest eCommerce Company #2: JD.com (JingDong)

jd.com intenet company

Although most of the US-based eCommerce companies have been able to reach users from all around the world, they haven’t had much success in China, thanks to several internet laws.

Instead, JD.com is China’s somewhat version of Amazon.

The company was founded in 1998 as 360Buy but started trading online in 2004.

The company has its headquarters in Beijing, and given its rapid growth over the last few years, larger eCommerce companies, including Alibaba, consider it a threat.

A significant difference between Jingdong and Amazon is that the latter uses third-parties to deliver the items to their customers.

JD handles all the logistics operations by itself, which ensures the store offers almost all the orders by the next day.

In 2016, the company launched JD Plus, a parallel of Amazon Prime.

Members of JD Plus get to enjoy free shipping (around 60 times annually), special discount offers, free eBooks, and access to iQiYi Premium.

iQiYi is the largest online video platform in China and has over 10 million JD Plus members.

JD.com is a market leader in high tech delivery.

The company uses drones for autonomous deliveries and an efficient delivery system in rural areas.

Jingdong is now looking to build drone airports and control centers for a more efficient delivery system.

JD has a market cap of $115.96 billion and generated $114.97 billion in revenue in 2020.

Largest eCommerce Company #3: Alibaba

alibaba largest internet companyAlthough this eCommerce giant has an exceptional stronghold in China, the third-biggest market in the world, Alibaba is continuously growing to penetrate other markets and make a global name for itself.

Jack Ma founded Alibaba Group Holding Limited in 1999.

The company has its headquarters in Hangzhou, where Jack ventured out by making websites for small companies in the ‘90s.

Today, the company operates both Alibaba.com and 1688.com.

Alibaba.com handles global transactions, while 1688 is predominantly involved in Chinese transactions.

A significant selling factor for Alibaba is that it not only caters to consumers but retailers as well.

The company’s core operations fall under Taobao, Tmall, and AliExpress.

Taobao is the company’s largest marketplace and handles the consumer-to-consumer business in China.

Tmall is in charge of the business-to-consumer market in China, while AliExpress helps the company serve its global audience.

Alibaba successfully transformed the Chinese holiday into a shopping spree, and the company makes significant revenue from the sales during this period.

In 2018, Alibaba made $30.8 billion, which set a new record for the company.

Alibaba has a market cap of $619.84 billion and total revenue of $71.99 billion in 2020.

Largest eCommerce Company #4: Suning.com

Suning.comSuning.com is one of the largest non-government retailers in China, headquartered in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.

It has more than 1,600 stores covering over 700 cities in China and Japan and its e-commerce platform.

Suning.com has a market cap of $13.47 billion and total revenue of $38.06 billion in 2019.

Largest eCommerce Company #5: Rakuten

Rakuten

The Rakuten company began in 1997 and is today known as the ‘Amazon of Japan.’

Rakuten has quite a sizeable market, seeing as 90% of the internet users in Japan use the platform for their shopping.

With over 40,000 companies scattered around the world, the company has established a presence for itself, not just in Japan but globally.

This e-commerce company deals with products under various categories such as electronics, home appliances, pet supplies, healthcare, among others. The platform facilitates both B2B and B2C operations.

The company is also keen on investing in other well-established platforms like Lyft and Pinterest.

Eventually, Rakuten aims to provide a network of services that caters to any of their customers’ needs.

By doing so, Rakuten promotes its brand across different niches.

Rakuten’s revenue in 2020 was $13.48 billion, which was a 14.7% increase from 2018’s revenue.

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