China's Alibaba breaks Singles Day record as sales surge
E-commerce giant Alibaba has broken its own record for sales on China's Singles Day, the world's biggest online shopping event. The firm said sales surpassed the record amount of $9.3 billion made last year in just over half the time.
Alibaba group’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China
Alibaba said more than $1 billion was spent within eight minutes of midnight. Within the first hour, it had made $3.9 billion in sales, almost double the amount spent in the same time period of the event last year. In comparison, sales on Cyber Monday, which is the biggest online shopping day in the US, hit $1.35 billion.
Jack Ma or Ma Yun - a Chinese business magnate and philanthropist - and the founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group, a family of successful Internet-based businesses
Singles Day, also known as Double Eleven because it is held on 11 November, has become a major annual event for Chinese retailers. China’s capitalist holiday has grown tremendously since Alibaba began promoting it as a shopping day in 2009, and now includes many retailers such as rivals JD.com that stage sales promotions.
An illustration for the Chinese e-commerce holiday Singles' Day
This year, Alibaba has more than 40,000 merchants and 30,000 brands from 25 countries selling goods on its platforms. It accounts for more than 80% of China's internet sales market. It predicts that 1.7 million couriers, 400,000 vehicles and 200 planes will be making deliveries of products that range from electronics goods to cosmetics.
Internet café in Lijiang City
But don't mistake the rush to spend as a sign the Chinese economy is turning around. Many shoppers are well aware the economy is slowing. It is common for people to wait to spend on Singles Day to save money.
(All images - credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)
