China’s “Singles’ Day”, the world’s biggest shopping day, saw Alibaba smash last year’s full-day record takings and pull in $5.8bn by1.31pm, according to data displayed on a massive screen in the ecommerce group’s central auditorium in Hangzhou.
That in turn is more than 2.5 times the goods sold on last year’s Cyber Monday, the first-Monday-after-Thanksgiving online shopping bonanza in the US.
As of noon, Alibaba said that 12 brands had exceeded sales of Rmb100m on the day, led by smartphone seller Xiaomi, which had raked in over Rmb1bn via its Xiaomi Tmall flagship store. The only foreign brands in the top 12 were Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo and Denmark’s clothing brand Jack & Jones.