China's online group purchase market is expected to reach 16.5 billion yuan ($2.45 billion) in 2011, accounting for about one percent of all online retail sales, according to a recent industry report.

The sales volume of group purchases in the second half of 2010 totaled 1.79 billion yuan, with that in December alone reaching 401 million yuan, tuan800.com, a group purchase navigation site said in its report released in January, 2011.

It estimated the sales volume for the whole year of 2010 to be around 2 billion yuan, after Groupon's Chinese clone meituan.com unveiled the country's first group-buying website in March that year.

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A total of 1,726 group purchase websites mushroomed around China at the end of 2010, meaning 5.7 sites established each day, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the number of online group purchasers hit 18.75 million by the end of 2010, taking up 4.1 percent of the country's online population, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

Tuan800.com's report showed that group purchases offered an average discount of 33 percent, reducing average product price to 97 yuan, which in return saved 4 billion yuan for group purchasers.

Entertainment and food and catering contributed most to the shopping spree, with their combined sales totaling 570 million yuan, according to tuan800.