Taylor Swift expands to China with e-commerce giant JD.com
Taylor Swift has partnered with the second-largest e-commerce company in China for an exclusive clothing line.
According to Bloomberg, Swift’s fashion line will be available exclusively at JD.comalongside brands including Nautica Kids, Samsonite luggage, Ocean Spray cranberry juice, Jeep and Converse as part of JD’s new sales platform called US Mall.
JD is the biggest e-commerce company in China after Alibaba. It intends to take on Alibaba in the cross-border retail market; in April it launched JD Worldwide, an online sales platform including US Mall, which allows Chinese users to acquire imported goods, even from companies with no presence in China.
While the deal sees JD take valuable market share from its rival,Alibaba has deeper roots in theglobal music industry. This year it announced its partnership with global music company BMG. The agreement aims to boost earnings for BMG artists and writers through Alibaba’s streaming apps Xiami and TTPod. In China, Alibaba only has two other major music streaming competitors: internet giant Tencent’s QQ Music, and search provider Baidu’s iQiyi. Apple Music is currently unavailable in the Chinese mainland.
The partnership coincides with her 1989 world tour, where she'll perform with support act Vance Joy in Shanghai from November 10-12.
China’s population is nearing 1.4 billion and has two times as many internet users than in the US with around 620 million.