China's online shoppers reached 210 million by the end of June. The country is expected to become the world largest online retail market next year, overtaking Japan, said Li Jinqi, director of the Electronic Commerce and Information Department of the Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday at a forum in Shanghai.

China's e-commerce growth remained more than 30 percent from 2007 to 2010, with nearly 6 trillion yuan in transactions in 2011, Li said.

The proportion of online retail sales in total retail sales is one of the most important indexes for measuring the growth of e-commerce. The ratio hit 4.32 percent in 2011, Li said.

Wal-mart, the world largest retailer, is trying to join in China's e-commerce market. Asia President and CEO Scott Price said its cooperation with Store No 1 had saved it three years for building an e-commerce platform in China.

"In the following five to eight years, China's e-commerce market will be super huge," he said.

The number of China's mobile Internet users reached 388 million this year, China Business News reported on Wednesday.

Dianping.com, a Chinese daily deals and local reviews site similar to Yelp, has 45 million customers on mobile phones. The number of browsing mobile clients accounts for more than 60 percent of the total, said Long Wei, co-founder of the company.

Mobile e-commerce formed part of the development of e-commerce. It is also an important area for future innovation, said Tang Lei, eBay's director of the strategic development department, Greater China. "If e-commerce companies are not pay attention to mobile e-commerce, they will fall behind the times," he said.

E-commerce companies are pay increasing attention to technology developments and innovation. 360buy is more like an IT company, with more than 2,000 IT researchers, said Zhao Guoqing, vice-president of 360buy Group.

mengfanbin@chinadaily.com.cn