- Title: Alibaba's Singles' Day sales surge 32.3 percent to $120.7 Billion
- Date: 11th November 2016
- Summary: SHENZHEN, GUANGZHOU PROVINCE, CHINA (NOVEMBER 11, 2016) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF ALIBABA GROUP, JACK MA, WALKING ONTO STAGE
- Embargoed: 26th November 2016 20:45
- Keywords: Alibaba e-commerce China Shenzhen Jack Ma Singles' Day sales
- Location: SHENZHEN, GUANGZHOU PROVINCE, CHINA
- City: SHENZHEN, GUANGZHOU PROVINCE, CHINA
- Country: China
- Topics: Company News Markets,Economic Events
- Reuters ID: LVA002580507B
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: E-commerce giant Alibaba's Singles' Day festival posted a record 120.7 billion yuan ($17.73 billion) worth of sales on Friday (November 11), though the gala shopping day saw growth slow as Chinese shoppers searched for deeper discounts and lower price tags.
Amid fanfare and celebrity razzmatazz, sales on Alibaba's platforms had raced to a billion dollars in less than five minutes and broke past last year's total with almost nine hours of the day-long shopping gala to spare.
The final total marked a 32 percent rise from 2015, but growth was significantly lower than the 60 percent increase last year, a reflection of more caution among shoppers who opted to spend less money on each purchase than in previous years.
The 24-hour event, held annually on Nov. 11, offers a benchmark for Alibaba's performance and an insight into China's swing to online shopping, especially via smartphones.
"On November 11 (Singles' Day), we see the huge potential of China's consumer market. To achieve this much with our current, basic infrastructure, I'm feeling extremely satisfied," said Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma in a speech shortly before midnight on Friday.
"We look for further increase with globalization. Ninety percent of the world's countries are developing countries. If we can solve problems in rural areas of China, solving China's own development problems, in the next 20 years we will have opportunities all around the world. In the meantime, big data and cloud computing are also in our future imagination. They're the trends of the future. So with these thoughts, Alibaba's thinking is to redefine itself from a company to a builder, participant and operator of the economy," he added.
Ma played down the importance of the final figure, saying that the gross merchandise value (GMV) metric was "misleading" because it undervalued the company's wider ecosystem.
GMV refers to the value of goods sold by vendors through Alibaba's platforms. Alibaba makes money through advertising and charging vendors a proportion of their sales.
CEO of Alibaba Group, Daniel Zhang, said Alibaba was seeking a "perfect way to combine entertainment, interaction and commerce."
The discount shopping day, also known as "Double 11", still shifts more goods than the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales days in the United States combined.
The slowdown in sales growth comes amid a more saturated domestic online retail market, a weaker economy and sluggish personal income growth hitting consumers' wallets. A strong U.S. dollar also hit the headline sales figure in dollar terms. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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