Thursday, 12 November 2015 13:24
Every year on Nov 11, Alibaba holds Singles Day, the biggest 24 hour online shopping extravaganza of the world. However what was so special about this year’s fiesta was Alibaba smashing record sales of $ 14.3 billion. The results revealed earlier today by the e-commerce giant reported a whopping 54% increase from last year sales.
“This is a great day and it symbolizes the great power of China’s domestic consumption,” said Jack Ma, Alibaba’s executive chairman, addressing reporters ahead of the release of the final sales tally. Commenting on the weakening of China’s economy he added, “Of course, we believe the next five to ten months China’s economy might have big problems. It is a bumpy time, but the economy will be better over the next 15 years”.
But, even the weakening economy did not damper the discount day when people flocked the e-commerce giant looking for bargains and deals. Naturally any discount rate can trigger a massive demand even in a slowing down economy.
Daiwa Capital Markets analyst John Choi said “It’s a day of discounts, so people, regardless of the economic slowdown, will want to go out and look for bargains”.
‘Singles Day’ was coined by Alibaba some 6 years ago for single people to spend some money on themselves. Other e-commerce participants for this year’s shopping spree included cosmetic giant ‘Estee Lauder’, clothing company ‘Zara’, luxury goods provider ‘Burberry’ and another clothing chain ‘Uniqlo’. However, it was Alibaba who walked away with the biggest prize.
