COVID-19 notwithstanding, customers made the most of Alibaba Singles’ Day celebration discounts with the company logging more than $56 billion worth orders till November 11. It also saw record peak of 583,000 orders per second, Reuters reported.
Calculating gross merchandise volume (GMV) for a 11-day period instead of 24 hours, the company surpassed 372.3 billion Yuan or $56.3 billion till November 11, Alibaba said.
This is being viewed as another indicator of China’s “economic rebound” from the pandemic after the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan last year, as Alibaba is not the only player seeing big numbers. Douyin, JD.com Incorporated and Pinduoduo Incorporated are among the other companies hosting Singles Day events.
JD.com said it recorded 200 billion Yuan worth sales in the first nine minutes on November 11; while electronics shop Suning.com (part owned by Alibaba) saw 5 billion Yuan sales in first 19 minutes of the day.
Analysts said sales have jumped as travel restrictions on Chinese ensured that appetite for luxury brands was met domestically, diverting consumers tourism from US and European brands such as Harrods and Nordstroms.
The e-commerce giant held its mega shopping festival early this year, with discount periods lasting from November 1-3 and on November 11. It started the tradition in 2009. Last year’s GMV was $38.4 billion.
Notably, this also comes a week after $76 billion in losses due to suspension of group company Ant Financial’s IPO. Alibaba owns a third of Ant.
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