Home-sharing services to hit US$7.9b

Source: Xinhua | 2018-05-18

China’s market for home-sharing services is expanding rapidly, with the transaction volume expected to reach 50 billion yuan (US$7.85 billion) by 2020, a report showed.

The number of tenants is likely to exceed 100 million while the number of shared homes will exceed 6 million by 2020, according to a report by the State Information Center, a State Council think tank.

In 2017, transactions in the country’s home-sharing market totaled 14.5 billion yuan, up 70.6 percent year on year. Around 7,600 tenants had the option to choose from 3 million shared-homes that are registered on Airbnb-like short-term lodging providers.

Chen Chi, CEO of industry leader Xiaozhu.com, said that there is still ample room for the home-sharing market to develop, and the whole industry needs to work together to improve user experiences.

The growth was supported by a surge in financing. Home-sharing service providers across China received a combined US$540 million in financing last year, up 180 percent year on year.

Amid government efforts to encourage innovation, China’s sharing economy has seen rapid expansion in the past few years.