China Survey: 70% Plan To Boost E-Commerce Purchases

A survey of Chinese Internet users found 49 percent of their retail purchases are made through on-line sites, while more than 70 percent of users expect to boost spending through the medium The survey, by MKM Partners, "is extremely bullish for e-commerce in China and for Alibaba in particular," MKM's Robert Sanderson said in a research note. MKM launched coverage on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

last week with a Buy rating and $125 target. About 70 percent of the survey's 1,000 respondents said they shop "primarily" on sites owned by Alibaba, with JD.Com Inc.

at 18 percent, Amazon.com Inc.

at 9 percent and three percent for all others. Slightly less than half of China's 1.36 billion people have access to the Internet, according to MKM. Intentions to spend more on line suggest that existing users will account for annual sales growth of 30 percent, while the number of new online shoppers has increased nearly 25 percent in each of the past two years. Alibaba has raked-in new customers at a growth rate of more than 50 percent "for at least the past four quarters," Sanderson said. Alibaba, which went public last week, has seen its shares fall more than 5 percent from a high of more than $90 a share Wednesday. "While Alibaba shares settle post-IPO, we would be building core positions, Sanderson said. Alibaba and JD.com were each down nearly 2 percent in afternoon trading Monday; Amazon was off about 0.6 percent. . Alibaba Group Holding Ltd