JD.com: Younger consumers driving China’s online Baijiu sales

Challenging the perception China’s fiery sorghum-based Baijiu is the preferred tipple of an older generation of consumers, the latest report by China’s leading e-commerce company JD.com shows that the spirit is in fact a favourite among younger consumers aged between 26 and 35, who make up more than half of all Baijiu consumers online.

According to  JD.com, a growing number of consumers born in 1980s and 1990s are driving up online Baijiu sales, accounting for 64% of all revenues generated from the sale of alcoholic beverage online in the past year on the e-commerce platform.

JD.com’s online Baijiu sales in 2017 grew by 52.5% in revenue, the company said without disclosing exact numbers.

Five of the its top selling Baijiu brands were Wuliangye, Kweichow Moutai, Yanghe, Luzhou Laojiao and Niulanshan.

JD.com also claims it has surpassed Alibaba’s retail platform Tmall.com to become the country’s biggest online platform for Baijiu sales with a majority of 53% market share v.s. Tmall’s 24%.

In 2017, China’s national Baijiu sales amounted to RMB 565.442 billion (US$89.8 billion), up by 14.42% year on year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, despite price hikes from popular brands such as Kweichow Moutai and Wuliangye. The country is already the world’s biggest spirits consumer with the majority being Baijiu.

In terms of online wine sales on JD.com, the company says the five most sought-after wine brands from last year were Les Domaines Barons de Rothschild (DBR) wines, COFCO’s Great Wall, Changyu, Penfolds and Yellow Tail.