Today we published our Asia Pacific Online Retail Forecast, 2011-2016 highlighting online retail sales in five different markets in Asia Pacific: China, Japan, Australia, South Korea, and India.

Along with providing overall online retail market sizes, we note that:

The combined size and growth of China's eCommerce market are unprecedented. China's online retail market surpassed $100B in 2011 and continues to grow at a breakneck pace — when the US online retail market was the same size as the market in China today, growth was considerably slower. We revised our forecast upward to reflect the fact that online sales continue to increase at a rapid pace, even as the market size swells.

Growth rates in Japan, South Korea, and Australia are more tempered. In contrast to China, online retail sales in Japan, South Korea, and Australia will grow at rates more in line with those of the US and developed eCommerce markets of Europe. However, all three markets are attracting increased investment as a growing number of both domestic and foreign players launch new online offerings in these countries. 

India will grow quickly off a small base. India's eCommerce market, by far the smallest of those covered in our forecast, is poised to grow by more than five-fold by 2016 as the number of online buyers and per capita online spending increase rapidly. This market is gaining more attention as global brands look to markets that are in the early stages of eCommerce adoption but offer significant long-term potential.

Forrester clients can read a summary of the report here.