Douyin E - commerce's GMV in 2024 is approximately 3.5 trillion yuan, and top - tier influencers contribute about 9% to the overall market | Exclusive from 36Kr

Article | Li Xiaoxia

Editors | Qiao Qian, Yang Xuan

36Kr has exclusively learned that in 2024, the gross merchandise volume (GMV) of Douyin E - commerce was approximately 3.5 trillion yuan, with a year - on - year increase of 30%. Additionally, 36Kr has also learned that Douyin E - commerce's target for 2025 is 4.2 trillion yuan.

36Kr has verified this data with the relevant person in charge of Douyin E - commerce, but as of press time, no response has been received.

According to 36Kr, in 2024, the GMV of Taotian Group was around 8 trillion yuan; Pinduoduo's GMV last year was approximately 5.2 trillion yuan (the target was 5.5 trillion yuan).

Yesterday (February 13th), ByteDance held its 2025 All - hands meeting for all employees. 36Kr has learned that Kang Zeyu, the person in charge of the e - commerce business, revealed at the meeting that the GMV in 2024 helped Douyin E - commerce increase its market share, and it has now become the third - largest player in the industry.

Looking back at 2024, Douyin E - commerce had quite a roller - coaster ride. After the "all - in on low prices" strategy in the first half of the year led to the GMV growth rate falling short of expectations, Douyin E - commerce reinstated GMV as its top priority in the second half of the year. However, soon after, several top - tier influencers such as Xiao Yangge and Northeast Yujie were involved in scandals, which also dampened the enthusiasm of other top - tier influencers for participating in major promotions.

However, the GMV contributed by these highly - visible top - tier influencers accounted for a relatively small proportion of Douyin E - commerce's overall volume. Douyin E - commerce ultimately made up for the shortfall in its GMV target through the performance of the shelf - based shopping scenario and store - hosted live broadcasts (merchant self - broadcasts).

The above - mentioned informed source revealed that in 2024, the GMV from the shelf - based shopping scenario of Douyin E - commerce accounted for over 40%, and the GMV from store - hosted live broadcasts also slightly exceeded 30% of the overall volume. The remaining approximately 30% of the GMV mainly came from influencer live broadcasts, with the contribution ratio between top - tier influencers and small - and medium - sized influencers being approximately 3:7. If we set the threshold at one million followers, influencers with over one million followers contributed approximately 9% to the overall volume, while small - and medium - sized influencers with less than one million followers contributed approximately 21%.

Proportion of Douyin E - commerce business ecosystem

After nearly five years of development, Douyin E - commerce's reliance on the live - broadcast scenario, especially on top - tier influencer live broadcasts, has significantly decreased. This is primarily due to the rise of the shelf - based shopping scenario. In mid - 2022, Douyin E - commerce proposed to upgrade from "interest - based e - commerce" to "full - domain interest - based e - commerce", successively launching the Douyin Mall tab and an independent APP, which drove the proportion of GMV from the shelf - based shopping scenario to rise to 30% in 2023 and further climb to 40% in 2024. Compared with the live - broadcast scenario, the shelf - based shopping scenario is more related to users' active search and purchasing intentions.

According to 36Kr, Douyin E - commerce will also increase its subsidy efforts in shelf - based e - commerce this year. Last year, Douyin E - commerce exceeded its Double 11 target by taking the lead and providing C - end subsidies.

Secondly, in the live - broadcast scenario, the status of store - hosted live broadcasts has been elevated. Previously, 36Kr mentioned that this year, Douyin E - commerce will focus its resources on brand merchants and large non - brand merchants to ensure that merchants can achieve a relatively large GMV scale.

The above - mentioned informed source said that in fact, the GMV generated by store - hosted live broadcasts has exceeded that of influencer live broadcasts for two consecutive years. This is because brand merchants are paying more and more attention to the live broadcasts of their official flagship stores, and small - and medium - sized merchants are also increasing their live - broadcast rates to save the intermediate costs of influencers.

On February 10th, Li Liang, the vice - president of Douyin Group, also revealed some data when responding on Weibo to the collective live - broadcast sales event of Ma Liuji employees. For example, the number of small - and medium - sized merchants that have launched store - hosted live broadcasts on the platform far exceeds that of merchants relying on influencer live - broadcast sales; among the small - and medium - sized merchants whose GMV exceeded one million yuan in 2024, over 90,000 achieved this goal through store - hosted live broadcasts, far outnumbering those relying on influencer live broadcasts.

In influencer live broadcasts, the sales - driving ability of small - and medium - sized influencers with less than one million followers has been continuously improving, which has further reduced the reliance on top - tier influencers. In the past few years, Douyin E - commerce has continuously encouraged and nurtured small - and medium - sized content creators. In 2024, it also launched the "New Author Debut Program" and the vertical "Expert Program" to provide targeted support for new influencers and authors in multiple vertical industries such as pets and sports. Judging from the data, these support measures have enhanced the sales - driving ability of small - and medium - sized influencers.

The above - mentioned informed source revealed that one of Douyin E - commerce's strategies in 2025 is to continue to strengthen the standardized management of top - tier anchors while providing more support in terms of traffic to store - hosted live broadcasts and small - and medium - sized influencers. "The proportion of GMV contributed by top - tier influencers is not that high, but they have a relatively large impact on brands. Douyin also does not want the traffic to be concentrated on top - tier influencers."

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