China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba saw record breaking sales of more than 90 billion yuan, or 14 billion U.S. dollars, on the just concluded Singles Day on Wednesday.
Advertisement
“Singles Day” was coined by Alibaba a few 6 years ago for single people to spend a few money on themselves.
Last year’s total of $9.3 billion was matched a little more than 12 hours after the promotion’s midnight start.
The sales went past the $9.3 billion record set in 2014 halfway into single’s day, as it hit $1 billion in the first eight minutes of the sale.
Huge demand from China caused a shortage of premium organic baby milk formula in Australia.
The bearish tone in the market has to do with the fact that $14 billion in gross merchandise volume does not translate to $14 billion in revenue.
Hundreds of thousands of businesses benefit from Singles Day not only Internet companies, but also other companies that produce quality products, he said. And at least 27,000 merchants from across the globe participated.
“If I were allowed to shop in your ‘Singles Day, ‘ I wonder how cheap I could get for a new burner phone, for example, because one burner is never really enough, is it?”
Daniel Zhang, Alibaba’s chief executive, said during the event, “This year, Alibaba Group has transformed 11.11 into an unprecedented mobile shopping experience”.
“Alibaba is positioned as the number one player in the Chinese e-commerce market, so it has to be seen to be maintaining, or gaining ground really”, said Duncan Clark, chairman of Beijing-based tech consultancy BDA. “Globalization will be a long journey, but we want to bring this festival from a China shopping day to a global shopping day in the coming decade”.
Advertisement
Despite JD.com offering attractive discounts to its customers, their attention was still directed towards to Alibaba’s Tmall.com, now China’s third largest online store. “China’s consumption power will rise quickly and that will not only drive China’s economy, but also the world’s economy”, Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, said.
