Alibaba Singles' Day posts record $25bn in sales
Hong Kong, China - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Singles’ Day shopping bonanza generated a record 168.2bn yuan (US$25.3bn) in sales, as the company’s investment overseas and effort to link traditional retailers with the internet paid off.
The annual frenzy posted a 39 per cent increase in sales, exceeding Citigroup Inc estimates and defying concerns of an economic slowdown. The event helped at least 82 brands top 100mn yuan in sales - Nike, Xiaomi and Uniqlo coming out as some of the biggest winners.
To pump sales, the Chinese company also hosted a star-studded gala with film star Nicole Kidman and American rapper Pharrell Williams. Chief executive officer Daniel Zhang said the company wants to make the event more global, and is planning to take its gala overseas soon, without giving a time frame. This year, shoppers from at least 225 countries and regions swarmed the e-commerce giant to scoop up discounted lobster, iPhones and refrigerators.
"We want to make Singles’ Day a more global event," said Zhang during an interview in Shanghai. "We could take the gala overseas very soon."
About 90 per cent of transactions were done via mobile. At its peak, the company’s processors handled 256,000 transactions per second.
Citigroup Inc has predicted transactions will rise by more than 30 per cent to 158bn yuan this year. While that’s only half the growth rate last year, the event still dwarfs others such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Billionaire founder Jack Ma is using it as a testing ground for his plans to revamp China’s US$4tn traditional retail sector with tech- nology, an experiment that could help the behemoth gain an edge in China’s saturated market.
“The work that’s been done in the integration of offline and online, not just in terms of the technology integration, but the data and efficiencies for brands and the consumer through personalization has been enormous,” Alibaba President Mike Evans said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “We see the impact of it in our day-to-day business.”
The date of November 11 emerged as a counter-cultural antidote to the sentimentality of Valentine’s Day. It takes its name from the way the day is written numerically as 11/11, which resembles “bare branches,” a local expression for the unattached.
Now, it’s become an excuse for people to shop and binge on entertainment shows. Alibaba is using the occasion to test the limits of its cloud computing, delivery and payments units.