This archive report was first published on 3 May 2021.
Published on May 3, 2021, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released estimates showing a significant increase in global e-commerce sales in 2019.
According to UNCTAD, global e-commerce sales reached $26.7 trillion in 2019, a 4% increase from the previous year's $25.6 trillion. This growth is attributed to the increasing importance of online activities, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shamika Sirimanne, UNCTAD's director of technology and logistics, emphasized the need for countries, especially developing ones, to have access to such information as they rebuild their economies.
The top 10 countries accounting for $20.2 trillion of the total online sales in 2019 were the USA, China, Japan, South Korea, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and Australia.
Among the 13 top global e-commerce firms, 7 were from the USA, followed by China with four, Japan with one, and Canada with one.
