Small and midsized e-commerce companies grew faster than the overall China market in 2016.

E-commerce is booming in China, and it’s not just giants like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and JD.com Inc., both of which trade on U.S. stock exchanges, benefiting from the rapid growth.

Smaller and midsized online retailers and e-commerce companies in sectors like travel and services are also growing rapidly. That’s evident from a summary of the 2016 financial results of 152 companies listed on China’s National Equities Exchange and Quotations, or NEEQ, that have reported their 2016 financial results.

Those companies, which include e-retailers in fashion and electronics as well as online marketplace operators, reported their total sales increased 76% to 77.68 billion yuan ($11.25 billion) in 2016 from 43.98 billion yuan (6.37 billion) a year earlier, according to a report released last week by the NEEQ Online Research Center, an independent analyst firm.

 

By comparison, online retail sales in China grew 26.2% to 5.16 trillion yuan ($752 billion) in 2016 than that of a year ago, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

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Established in 2001, NEEQ, somewhat like NASDAQ in the United States, offer a fast channel for Chinese small and midsized companies to attract investment. There are 254 e-commerce companies, including web retailers and internet service operators, listed on NEEQ, according to the report, which only covered those that have reported 2016 results.

Investors also are optimistic about those e-commerce companies. For example, the stock price of Chinese liquor web retailer Jiuxian.com, a NEEQ-listed company, rose as high as 214.25% from its peak of last year, before falling back to a level about 100% higher than its price a year ago. The company’s current market value is 20.4 billion yuan ($2.95 billion), according to the report.

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Those listed e-commerce companies include fashion e-retailer Handuyishe E-commerce Co. Ltd., No. 163 in the Internet Retailer 2016 China 500, and Hunan Ocean Wing E-Commerce Co., an e-retailer that selling electronics products, mainly on Amazon.com.

Those 152 e-commerce companies that have issued their 2016 earnings reported strong profit as well as sales growth. Together they reported net profit of 974 million yuan in 2016, compared with a loss of 90 million yuan in 2015.

The report says there are seven categories that topped 2 billion yuan in 2016 sales. There also were six categories—including general merchandise, electronics, alcohol, services, apparel and travel—that grew by more than 35% in 2016.

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Cosmetics e-retailers did particularly well, increasing their sales by 76% in 2016 as their average profit margin reached 40%.

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