Alibaba Shatters Singles Day Sales Record At $56B — With Another 24 Hours To Go

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA said the gross merchandise value (GMV) at its Singles Day shopping event has surpassed $56.42 billion (RMB 372.3 billion) as of 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday (Beijing Time).

What Happened: The shopping bonanza, which is typically a single day event, has run from Nov. 1 this year and is due to end at midnight on Nov. 12.

The Jack Ma-led company said that, at peak time, 583,000 orders were created per second.

As of 12:35 a.m. on Wednesday (Beijing Time), 342 brands, including, Apple Inc AAPL, Nike Inc NKE, Xiaomi Corporation XIACF, and Adidas AG ADDDF surpassed $15.15 million (RMB 100 million) in GMV. Thirteen brands surpassed $151.5 million (RMB 1 billion) in GMV.

The top countries by GMV on Wednesday morning were the United States, Russia, France, Malaysia, and Singapore. 

Alibaba’s competitor JD.com, Inc JD said it recorded a transaction value of $200 billion on Wednesday as of 12:09 a.m. (Beijing Time), reported CNBC.

Why It Matters: Last year, Alibaba recorded a GMV of  $40.67 billion (RMB 268.4 billion) in a 24-hour period Singles Day event. 

Singles Day is the world's largest 24-hour shopping day event and is akin to an anti-Valentine’s Day where people celebrate their singledom.

In 2019, total sales racked up by Alibaba amounted to $38 billion, which was a 24.6% rise year-on-year. 

Together both JD.com and Alibaba brought in over $68 billion in Singles Day sales last year.

Amazon.com, Inc AMZN two-day Prime Day sales in October totaled nearly $10.4 billion as a comparison. 

Price Action: Alibaba shares closed 8.26% lower at $266.54 on Tuesday and gained 0.27% in the after-hours session. On the same day, JD.com shares closed 5.63% lower at $80.08.