China's sharing economy worth $298b: report

From ride-hailing business to online auctioneers, sharing economy platforms have created a market worth 1.95 trillion yuan ($298 billion) in 2015, according to figures released by the National Information Center Sunday. (Xinhuanet file photo)

BEIJING -- From ride-hailing business to online auctioneers, sharing economy platforms have created a market worth 1.95 trillion yuan ($298 billion) in 2015, according to figures released by the National Information Center Sunday.

There are 50 million sharing business providers in China and they have more than 500 million consumers, according to a report by the center.

The sharing economy satisfies a variety of needs in daily life and business. In addition to taxi-hailing apps such as Didi, product, knowledge and service-based providers have mushroomed on the Internet, said Yang Yixin, deputy secretary-general of the China Internet Association, at a press conference issuing the report.

Zhang Xinhong, with the National Information Center's Information Research Department, said China's sharing economy would grow at an annual rate of 40 percent in the next five years, and would take up more than 10 percent of China's GDP by 2020.

Taxi-hailing app Didi, the result of a merger between two separate startups in early 2015, raised tens of billions of US dollars last year from domestic and overseas investors.

Li Jianhua, chief development officer of Didi, said the hailing service received 1.4 billion calls in 2015, a figure Li expects to double by 2016.

The report forecast that in the next decade, five to 10 firms with similar value and influence as Didi will establish themselves in the sharing economy.