Li Jiaqi is the top live cosmetics blogger and seller on Taobao with 18.5 million subscribers [as of February 2020]. He gets over ten million views for his daily streams. Viya is also a live Taobao streaming seller that features items ranging from skin care to grains. She has 15.3 million subscribers and her regular live streams get over 12 million views per stream. Both regularly sell tens or hundreds of millions of renminbi of products.

By comparison, Bill Gates has 48.9 million weibo followers, Robert Downey Jr. has 42.6 million Instagram followers, and Lady Gaga has 39.4 million Instagram followers. These public figures are all internationally known, while Chinese KOLs are only known in China and among a small number of Chinese expatriates.

The pace of digitization in the country means that its modern celebrities and influencers have gone straight to the web without wasting time and brought e-commerce with them. When we talk about China’s internet economy, the role of KOLs cannot be ignored.