Kevin Spacey Helps Alibaba Score $1B in 8 Minutes

Taking place on the 11th of November, it’s been revealed that this year’s shopping spree generated $5 billion for e-commerce giant Alibaba in the first 90 minutes of Singles Day going live – the same amount that Americans spent online last year on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

The Chinese e-commerce giant, which six years ago turned November 11 into China’s equivalent of US shopping event Cyber Monday, said today that its 2015 sales have eclipsed last year’s final results in a little over half the time.

This year’s Singles Day shopping extravaganza came only days after China unveiled proposals for the 13th Five-year Plan (2016-2020), which said consumption should play a “fundamental role” in future economic growth as Chinese government reduce the dependence on exports and focus more on domestic consumption.

But Alibaba – listed on the NY Stock Exchange – shrugged off the allegations, asserting that it owns the “Singles Day” brand. The second-ranking JD.com, though much smaller in volume, said 32 million orders were placed on Thursday, up 130 percent from previous year.

Jack Ma kicks off Singles Day in China. Alibaba estimates it makes up 80 percent of China’s online shopping market.

According to Alibaba, 6 million products are on offer from more than 40,000 merchants, and the e-commerce company is deploying 1.7 million people to deliver the goods, using 400,000 vehicles, 5,000 warehouses, and 200 planes. Even after factoring in the boost from Singles’ Day, analysts at CLSA expect transactions for the quarter ending December to be no more than 29 percent higher than the previous year. The stuttering performance overall of the world’s second largest economy has prompted global market anxiety in recent months.

While he was unable to provide early sales numbers, he said the company was seeing a very strong performance compared to previous year. But Alibaba in 2009 co-opted the event into a consumption-fest for all, featuring steep discounts and other promotions aimed at attracting droves of customers online.

Last year’s record was broken by mobile users alone, as Tmall.com and Taobao Marketplace saw 95 million shoppers accounting for $9.8 billion.

While average consumers flock to cheap online deals, conventional retailers with many employees struggle to increase sales of high-end merchandise.