SINGLES’ DAY ONLINE SALES HIT NEARLY $31 BILLION
(HINDUSTAN TIMES) BEIJING, NOV 12, 2018 - China’s retail power was on full display over the weekend as the country’s online shoppers bought goods worth nearly $31 billion during the annual 24-hour Singles’ Day sales, shattering last year’s $24 billion record. China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba said on Monday the Singles’ Day sales on its online shopping platforms reached a record 213.5 billion yuan or about $30.7 billion on November 11, also popularly known as 11/11.
The sales volume broke through gloomy forecasts of depressed 11/11 purchase volumes as China, the second-largest economy, goes through an economic slowdown and a trade war with the US, the largest economy in the world. The total sales on the company’s online platforms, including Tmall and Taobao on Sunday, represented an annual increase of about 27% from 168.2 billion yuan a year ago, alibaba said.
In fact, Singles’ Day sales on Tmall hit 10 billion yuan or $1.44 billion in just two minutes and five seconds after midnight on Sunday, the official news agency, xinhua reported. “Alibaba launched the annual online shopping promotion on Nov. 11, 2009, a day celebrated by many Chinese young people as Singles’ Day,” the report said, adding that sales of Tmall’s first shopping festival totalled about 52 million yuan and the number has been growing ever since with increasingly more consumers turn to online shopping.