Amazon Around the World

'Primed' for International Expansion, but Faces Challenges from Alibaba, MercadoLibre, Flipkart and Others

Amazon dominates the US ecommerce landscape, but it’s a very different story overseas. In an effort to duplicate its domestic success, Amazon has doubled down on its international efforts, with Prime membership at the core of its expansion strategy.

  • What percent of worldwide retail ecommerce sales are attributed to Amazon? We forecast that Amazon will account for 48.0% of US retail ecommerce sales in 2018, making it the largest ecommerce platform in the country. It will make up 13.3% of worldwide retail ecommerce sales this year and just 5.6% when the US is excluded.
  • How many Amazon Prime members are outside the US? The number of international Amazon Prime subscribers (59.5 million) will surpass that of US subscribers (58.5 million) for the first time in 2018, according to J.P Morgan. Prime memberships are currently available in 17 countries: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the UK and the US.
  • What is Amazon’s largest market outside the US? Germany is Amazon’s largest foreign market, accounting for nearly one-third of its international net sales in 2017, according to the firm. Much of its success has to do with its wide-ranging product offering, low prices and a high degree of cross-border shopping from neighboring countries.
  • Which markets outside the US are being targeted by Amazon? Amazon continues to place its bets on India, a fast-growing ecommerce market where the firm has already had considerable success. It’s also one of the few countries where Prime Video is more popular than Netflix. Amazon also has a big opportunity with logistics in Latin America and recently established a local platform in Turkey.
  • What percent of China’s retail ecommerce market is attributable to Amazon? Amazon will account for less than 1% of China’s retail ecommerce market in 2018. That’s largely because of Alibaba, which will make up 58.2% of retail ecommerce sales in China this year.

WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT? This report provides an overview of Amazon’s business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce business outside of the US, with a focus on Prime membership. It also includes country-by-country breakouts for eight of Amazon’s core markets.

KEY STAT: Amazon will account for 13.3% of worldwide retail ecommerce sales in 2018 and 13.7% in 2019.

Here’s what’s in the full report

4files

Exportable files for easy reading, analysis and sharing.

45charts

Reliable data in simple displays for presentations and quick decision making.

7expert perspectives

Insights from industry and company leaders.

Table of Contents

  1. Global Overview and eMarketer’s Forecast for 2018
  2. The ‘Amazon Effect’ Outside the US
  3. Amazon Prime Abroad
  4. Country-by-Country Snapshots
  5. Canada
  6. China
  1. France
  2. Germany
  3. India
  4. Mexico
  5. UK
  6. US
  1. Key Takeaways
  2. eMarketer Interviews
  3. Read Next
  4. Sources
  5. Media Gallery

Charts in This Report

Interviewed for This Report

Daniel Knijnik
Quartile
Co-Founder and CEO
Interviewed August 29, 2018
Andrea Omodei
Alfaparf Group
Head of Digital and Ecommerce
Interviewed October 12, 2018
Elena Stenholm
Finavia
Vice President, Commercial Services
Interviewed August 22, 2018
Omar Galicia
MercadoLibre
Commercial Director, Mexico
Interviewed July 2, 2018
Julian Garritz
Garritz International
Founder and Chairman
Interviewed September 24, 2018
Mudit Jaju
Wavemaker
Global Head of Ecommerce
Interviewed October 6, 2018
Michael LeBlanc
M. E. LeBlanc & Company
Founder and Principal
Interviewed September 24, 2018

authors

Jasmine Enberg

Contributors

Caroline Cakebread
Junior Analyst
Matteo Ceurvels
Research Analyst
Man-Chung Cheung
Research Analyst
Jeane Han
Senior Researcher
Jennifer Jhun
Research Director, International and Special Projects
Angela Kim
Senior Researcher

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