英语文摘:Alibaba says its trading volume to exceed Walmart in two years

HANGZHOU, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- China's e-commerce giant Alibaba said Thursday its online sales volume will exceed the worldwide sales of global retail giant Walmart in two years.

"Within two years, the online retail volume of Alibaba will exceed the sales of Walmart," said Alibaba's president Jin Jianhang at a global e-commerce summit in east China's Hangzhou city.

In the first half of 2014, Alibaba's total trading volume reached 931 billion yuan (151 billion U.S. dollars).Its trading volume in the second quarter hit 501 billion yuan, up 45 percent year on year.

In 2013, Alibaba reported a gross merchandise volume of 248 billion dollars on its three major trading platforms, more than those of eBay and Amazon.com combined.

The sales of Walmart in the 2014 fiscal year reached 437 billion dollars.