China Singles’ Day sales surge to record in first hour

Mobile sales accounted for 70% of the total GMV generated. Economist believe that the massive shopping event in the country will also bring in many more global brands to China, which might spur growth in the economy.

Last year, Alibaba hosted $9.3bn worth of transactions on its online stores, after consumers spent $2bn in the first hour alone. After the first 90 minutes, that number had swelled to $5 billion. Before noon in China Wednesday, total orders surpassed that of past year by noon, JD said.

The impressive numbers are undoubtedly a boon for Alibaba, which has previously struggled with mobile strategy amid rising competition from other Internet giants such as Tencent.

Alibaba, on leading the online shopping festival, aims to tap more local Chinese in its market and make deliveries there.

Alibaba plans to bring goods from US small and midsize businesses to consumers in Asia, where there is demand for unique and high-quality products, Ma said as the company was wrapping up its Singles’ Day shopping promotion.

Back in 2009, e-commerce giant Alibaba started to offer deals on its online shopping platforms on Singles Day, using it as an excuse for self-gifting and indulgence. “Not only with the money but by helping them to come to China one day”.

Last year, the company had handled a peak volume of 80,000 orders per second, and this was expected to rise to 120,000 orders per second in 2015. “It will be a proud achievement for us”, added Zhang.

Last year on Singles’ Day, Alibaba’s entire sales were $9.3 billion during the 24-hour period, a 60% increase from the year before.

With Singles Day now fully in the rearview mirror, the folks at JD have finally released the company’s final order count, and it’s impressive. E-commerce has become a success in China as it overtook the U.S. as the world largest online retail market with Dollars 442 billion compared to US’ almost USD 300 billion a year ago.