China Exclusive: Alibaba's spending list offers rare consumer insight

In 2015, people in Shanghai were China's most generous online spenders; braised chicken with rice the favorite dish.

A year-end review on spending habits on Tuesday released by Alipay, China's largest online payment platform, is offering unprecedented insight into consumer habits of the country's 668 million internet shoppers.

Residents in Shanghai spent more than any other provincial-level region last year on Alipay, with an average individual spending of 104,155 yuan (15,877 U.S. dollars), according to the report released by Ant Financial, financial service affiliate of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba and operator of Alipay.

Zhejiang Province in east China ranked second, with 94,192 yuan spent per person on average, followed by Beijing, and the eastern coastal provinces of Jiangsu and Fujian.

The most notable change from Chinese buyers is, rather than a credit card wallet, cellphones were used for 65 percent of the money exchanged on Alipay in 2015, up 15.8 percent from 2014.

More surprisingly, the most mobile-friendly spenders live in the less developed western China. Tibetans conducted 83.3 percent of their Alipay transactions via mobile, the highest in the country. Following Tibet, western provinces Guizhou, Gansu, Shaanxi and Qinghai all posted numbers of above 78 percent.

One explanation: smart phones are more affordable and common than personal computers, so they've become the access point for the rural west's recent e-commerce boom.

But the eastern provinces and more developed cities still took the lead in terms of total spending on Alipay, with Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing rounding out the top five, according to the report.

When it comes to dining, people spent 36 yuan per transaction on average, and braised chicken with rice, often sold as a set meal in eateries, was the most purchased food via Alipay last year, said the report.

The report also shows that young Chinese are keen on using digital means to manage money, with 77.9 percent of Alipay's money management tool users in 2015 born in the 1980s and 90s.

The tools are particularly of interest to students, with one out of five users of Alipay's financing tools last year a student aged 18 to 22.

Beijingers were the best money managers last year, with 447 yuan earned per person on average via Alipay tools, followed by residents in Shanghai and Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province.

It is also notable that 14.4 percent of Alipay's financing tool users live in rural areas, showing an increasing demand for the financing market in rural China.

The report also gives a glimpse of China's buying habits overseas. The average individual price for products bought overseas was 844 yuan and 72 percent of the consumers who shopped overseas via Alibaba were females. [ China has witnessed rapid growth in e-commerce, with online sales estimated to exceed 18 trillion yuan in 2015, according to the Ministry of Commerce. Alibaba enjoyed the success of Single's day, the world's largest online shopping festival, on Nov.11, 2015, smashing sales records after revenue for its Tmall marketplace totalled 91.2 billion yuan, up 60 percent from 2014. Endi