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Category: Retail / Internet Culture

Alibaba posts record Singles' Day sales as Chinese e-shoppers spend billions

Saturday, 12 Nov 2016 04:33:16

Attendants look on at a giant screen showing the total sales transacted during Alibaba's "Singles' Day" shopping festival. (AP: Kin Chueng)

E-commerce giant Alibaba has posted a record 120.7 billion yuan ($23.39 billion) worth of sales on Friday during its Singles' Day festival, one of the world's busiest days for e-commerce.

Alibaba Singles' Day 2016 key figures:

  • Transactions beat the 2015 total with 9 hours of shopping still to go
  • The growth rate was 32 per cent, lower than last year's 60 per cent rise
  • Alibaba says 82 per cent of purchases were made on mobile phones
  • The 2015 sales record was $18.7 billion

The figure eclipses the $3.97 billion research firm comScore says Americans spent in total last year on Cyber Monday, the country's biggest online shopping day.

Amid fanfare and celebrity razzmatazz, sales on Alibaba's platforms raced above $1 billion in less than five minutes and broke past last year's total with almost nine hours of the day-long shopping gala to spare.

The final total marked a 32 per cent rise from 2015, though the gala shopping day saw growth slow compared to the 60 per cent increase last year, as Chinese shoppers searched for deeper discounts and lower prices.

The 24 hour event, held annually on November 11, offers a benchmark for Alibaba's performance and an insight into China's swing to online shopping, especially via smartphones.

Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma played down the importance of the final figure in a speech shortly before midnight, echoing other executives who spoke during the day.

"[Singles' Day] is not about a number only," he said.

"When volumes started to grow a little less fast I actually became more relaxed," Mr Ma said, citing the challenge of handling such a large number of orders.

"We don't want to collapse the entire logistics system."

The discount shopping day, also known as "Double 11", shifts more goods than the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales days in the United States combined.

The slowdown in sales growth comes amid a more saturated domestic online retail market, a weaker economy and sluggish personal income growth hitting consumers' wallets.

AP/Reuters

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