Alibaba Group surpassed its sales volume on Singles’ Day yet again, albeit this time there are concerns about slowing growth.
The NYSE-listed Chinese e-commerce powerhouse set another record this year, racking up RMB 213.5 billion (US$30.8 billion) in sales from its 24-hour Singles’ Day sales on Sunday.
Chinese consumers raced each other to nab bargains on Alibaba platforms, buying from international and domestic brands, clocking in RMB 100 billion (US$14.4 million) worth of goods within the first two hours when the festival began at midnight.
30 of the 180,000 participating brands saw their sales pass the RMB 100 million (US$14.4 million) mark in just 30 minutes, including Apple, Nike, and Xiaomi.
By late afternoon, around 5:34 p.m., the gross merchandise value (GMV) across its various shopping platforms had already passed 2017’s US$25.3 billion, and kept marching further to conclude the day with a 27% year-on-year increase.
However, the increase also marked the slowest growth rate over the past decade. Alibaba’s Southeast Asia arm Lazada, Ele.me, and Hema stores also participated in the event and contributed to the sales figures, which is why the slowing growth is even more worrisome.
Breaking 2017’s record by late afternoon was also slow when 4 hours was all it took to reach 2016’s record last year.
In terms of logistics order, Alibaba has become the first to process 1 billion orders all within one day, fulfilling Jack Ma’s prediction (link in Chinese). That number is equivalent to China’s entire’s year of delivery orders back in 2006; 20 days worth of delivery orders in the US, or four months in the UK.
Editor: Ben Jiang