Alibaba Group on late Monday said that the company set a new record on this year's Singles' Day, registering sales of $38 billion. China's biggest e-commerce company topped its own record, set last year, within the first 16 and 1/2 hours, before ending this year's sales at a staggering 268.4 billion yuan ($38.4 billion).
This is an increase of 25% over last year's sales of $30.8 billion. However, Alibaba said that last year's sales grew 27%, which means this year saw 2% slower growth. Analysts had predicted slower growth this year given that China is going though an economic slowdown. However, that doesn't make much of a difference for the e-commerce giant.
One man missing from this year's show was the group's founder member Jack Ma was who had retired last year. Ma used to come up with not only powerful speeches but also surprise performances fro his employees and customers.
Giitz, glamour and new records set
The shopping extravaganza this year opened with a glitzy show by Taylor Swift, followed by a performance by Asian pop icon GEM. The 24-hour-long frenzied buying saw the company set quite a few records. In fact, the company registered sales of $1 billion within the first 68 seconds into the online shopping festival and $10 billion in the in half an hour.
More than half a billion from different countries participate in the shopping extravaganza that this year a massive presence of American brands. Electronic goods and fashion items were most sold goods in this year's edition.
This is the 11th edition of Singles' Day being organized by Alibaba, which is only getting better and bigger every year. "We continue to feel very confident about the growth potential of the economy," said Alibaba chief marketing officer Chris Tung.
Singles' Day is equivalent to US's Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which too register huge sales. However, Singles' day has over the years proved to be bigger than both Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
The five-day Black Friday registered sales under $25 billion last year, while Cyber Monday clocked sales of $8 billion. Singles' Day on the other hand being a one-day affair registered sales of $30.8 billion in 2018. The company also said that quite a large number of US and European brands including Apple, L'Oreal, and Dyson registered huge sales, receiving more than 100 million yuan, or just $14 million, in pre-orders.
