Hitting the $2 billion mark within the hour of its Singles’ Day sale, Alibaba breaks sales records.
Online retailer Alibaba has broken all sales records by crossing $5.9 billion in China’s annual Singles’ Day sale on November 11, 2014. By reaching $2 billion worth sales within the first hour, the company has broken last year’s sales record, which had reached $3.1 billion in the first half of the event.
Many international brands and companies have participated in the global online shopping carnival, which is being conducted across 175 countries this year.
The shopping festival has reportedly surpassed the online retail sales of both ‘Cyber Monday’ and ‘Black Friday’ in the US combined. The company is expecting to ship over 200 million packages from the orders placed on sale day, which is much more than the 2013 figure of 150 million, with a value of $5.75 billion.
Alibaba introduced the ‘Double 11′ sales in 2009, trademarking it in 2012, adopting Singles’ Day to boost their sales. The market for retail sales on this day has been projected to climb at an annual rate of 25 percent , from $390 billion in 2014 to $718 billion in 2017, according to AT Kearney.
The global e-tailer is the world’s seventh-largest company in terms of market value, overtaking General Electric and Wal-Mart, and following giants such as Microsoft, Apple and Google.
Photo Credits: reuters.com
