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By MENG JING (China Daily) Updated: 2014-05-26 07:42

FENG XIUXIA/CHINA DAILY

" China is moving toward a consumption economy, and more and more of its citizens are becoming affluent. They want to spend to indulge themselves," Yu says, adding that unlike some people who have reached a certain age and regard savings as a virtue, "young Chinese love to spend, as they want to have a comfortable life rather than just saving money".

Yu says China's love affair with Apple products is the best example of this trend. "Rather than smartphones they are street phones in China, especially among the younger generation. Obviously, price is not an issue here, as the higher prices have not deterred purchases. It is not uncommon to find many young Chinese who have spent more than a month's salary to acquire the latest iPhone from Apple."

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That, experts say, is also the driving force for the e-commerce industry in China. Consumption is no longer determined by prices and is more a combination of qualities and services, they say. Adding further credence to these statements are reports that China overtook the US to become the biggest e-commerce market in the world last year.

Though the e-commerce market is unlikely to post the growth rates of over 100 percent it recorded between 2006 and 2010, it still has enormous potential due to the huge size of the market. China's real consumption in 2013 was 36.5 percent of total GDP, which is significantly lower than that of other countries such as the United States, which had a consumption penetration rate of 66.8 percent in 2013, according to Euromonitor International.

Moreover, only about half of China's 618 million Internet users are online shoppers. With the increasing number of Internet users and the growing number of people making purchases online, the online shopping market in China is likely to remain the world's largest forever, simply because of the large number of people who shop online, says Egidio Zarrella, partner for clients and innovation consulting services with consultancy firm KPMG China.

"Even though China's e-commerce market is big, it accounts for just 8 percent of the global retail market. In the next 10 years, it would account for over 50 percent of the retail market," says Zarrella, adding that Chinese people are becoming more techsavvy and are enjoying purchasing goods online.

According to research Zarrella did in 2013, a large number of Chinese people have three or four mobile devices compared with one or two that people in Europe and the US have.