E-commerce company Alibaba has posted a record sales of $31 billion for its Singles Day online shopping event in China, breaking the $30 billion record in 2018 in 16.5 hours.
Alibaba hit $31 billion in sales at its annual Singles Day online shopping bonanza in China in just 16.5 hours, beating last year's record of $31 billion. The shopping event has regularly outdone the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events combined.
Alibaba said that in the Singles Day pre-sales that started three weeks ago, Estee Lauder posted a record 1 billion yuan or $143 million in pre-orders while Apple iPhone 11 pre-orders reached 100 million yuan or $14 million.
Research firm Oliver Wyman conducted a recent survey, which revealed that buyers are expecting to spend almost 10% more on Singles Day this year compared to 2018. However, the current sales numbers could also be seen as a sign of weakening growth since Alibaba posted a 27% growth in Singles Day revenue last year.
Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda, said: "Singles Day is being held up as a bellwether of Chinese consumers' willingness to spend in the face of a domestic slowdown. But deeply discounting prices always brings consumers out to play, no matter how bad the economy might be."
Meanwhile, Alibaba chief marketing officer Chris Tung said in an interview: "We continue to feel very confident about the growth potential of the economy. We are pushing deeper towards the less developed areas of China, to reach more new online shoppers, so there's a huge untapped opportunity there."
Other Chinese e-commerce platforms have participated in the Singles Day event, including JD.com, as well as regular brick-and-mortar stores. The event has also garnered popularity outside the country, with Alibaba's Southeast Asia subsidiary Lazada offering Singles Day discounts in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
US brands such as Nike and Brooks Brothers have also integrated Singles Day discounts into their website offerings.
