The Numbers Behind Alibaba’s Singles Day
November 11, 2015 by Chris LangePerhaps one of the biggest e-commerce companies in the world, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA), recently completed its “Singles Day.” The company announced a total of $14.3 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) that was processed through Alipay for its online retail marketplaces, making November 11, 2015, the largest shopping day in history.
Total GMV posted an increase of approximately 60% from the same period in 2014, and as a side note, Mobile GMV through Alipay accounted for nearly 69% of the total.
For some background, Singles Day was originally established as an “anti-Valentine’s Day,” where singles, rather than couples, would purchase each other gifts or even just gifts for themselves.
In terms of the buyers and sellers, over 16,000 international brands were involved in completed transactions between buyers and sellers in 232 countries and regions.
Overall the top countries selling to China this singles day were: United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Australia.
A few other key stats from Singles Day were:
- Total number of mobile buyers on Tmall.com and Taobao Marketplace was 95 million.
- Alipay processed a total of 710 million payment transactions, and processed 85,900 transactions per second at peak.
- AliCloud processed a total of 140,000 transactions per second at peak.
Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba, commented on this achievement:
This day demonstrates the power of domestic China consumption, and the Chinese consumer’s strong demand for international products. It also showcases how Alibaba uses big data, cloud computing and mobile innovations to create the best shopping experience for buyers and sellers.
There are two sides to every story; despite these phenomenal numbers, U.S. investors seemingly did not trust these numbers and shares are down on the day.
Shares of Alibaba were recently trading down 2% at $79.84, with a consensus analyst price target of $94.59 and a 52-week trading range of $57.20 to $120.00.
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