In just one day, Single’s Day sales far surpassed Flipkart’s six-day-long sale and has reportedly overtaken the sales figures of US’s Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) combined.
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JD said that 74% of total orders were placed via mobile platforms, through WeChat, QQ and JD’s mobile app. More than half of first-time customers during the day came from WeChat and Mobile QQ, the company said.
Analysts estimated that 72 percent of sales were from mobile phones. However, researchers estimate this year’s sales to go beyond $13.7 billion.
Boosting its Beijing presence could help Alibaba compete with JD.com, a rival online retailer based in the city.
Singles Day is the world’s largest shopping day. It was created in the 1990s as a way to celebrate single life. In the past, Alibaba used to win the national champion award convincingly. This year, the company is expecting more than 40,000 merchants and 30,000 brands from 25 countries worldwide.
Total number of mobile buyers on Tmall.com and Taobao Marketplace was 95 million.
“At each 11.11, Alibaba’s infrastructure is put to the test and our technological capabilities are taken to the next level”, said Daniel Zhang, chief executive officer of Alibaba Group.
Alibaba plans to bring goods from US small and midsize businesses to consumers in Asia, where there is demand for unique and high-quality products, Ma said as the company was wrapping up its Singles’ Day shopping promotion. The stock is expected to surge in today’s trading session.
This year, mobile sales were a key driver for Alibaba.
The total sales this year, which were posted by the e-commerce behemoth early Thursday morning, showed a 60 percent improvement from the company’s performance in 2014. The “11.11 Global Shopping Festival” began at midnight in China. After the first 90 minutes of Singles’ Day, that number had swelled to United States dollars 5 billion.
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Alibaba CEO Jack Ma hopes to spread China’s online shopping fever to the rest of the world.
