New milestone for Alibaba Group Holding

E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding has achieved yet another milestone after two of its major branches reached 1 trillion yuan ($160 billion) in combined sales by the end of November.

Annual revenue generated by Tmall and Taobao, the B2C and C2C arms of the group, exceeded 1 trillion yuan on Nov 30, according to company sources.

China's explosive e-commerce landscape has changed people's buying habits. Around 30 percent of transactions are made in the apparel sector, with total sales hitting 300 billion yuan. According to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, nearly 36 percent of purchases of shoes, clothes and bags are completed via Tmall or Taobao.

In 2011, only four provinces, namely Guangdong, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, reached trillion-level yuan in terms of total retail sales of consumer goods.

Tmall accounted for 54.6 percent of China's B2C business in the third quarter of 2012, data from consultancy iResearch showed. Taobao is leading the C2C market with a predominant market share of 94.5 percent.

Since 2012, Taobao and Tmall have created 4.67 million posts and helped open some 13 million new posts including logistics, online payment and e-commerce services, said IT consulting firm IDC.