The Final Tally Of Alibaba’s Singles’ Day

Alibaba knows how to get consumers’ attention.

And the figures from its 11.11 Global Shopping Festival — AKA Singles’ Day — prove that Alibaba knows a thing or two about getting those consumers to shop.

Alibaba managed to break the single-day sales record (which it set last year) of $9.3 billion, and it did so in about 12 hours. By the end of the 24-hour sale, Singles’ Day had generated $14.3 billion in total GMV (RMB 91.2B). This is a 60 percent increase from 2014’s figures.

Mobile was even more impressive and mobile GMV hit $9.8 billion, which accounted for 68.7 percent of total GMV for this year’s shopping festival. That’s a 158 percent increase from the year prior. The total number of mobile buyers on Tmall.com and Taobao Marketplace hit 95 million.

[bctt tweet=”By the end of the 24-hour sale, Singles’ Day had generated $14.3 billion in total GMV”]

Just to show how quick the momentum built during the shopping festival, by 2 p.m., Cainiao Logistics, the logistics affiliate of Alibaba Group, received 310 million delivery orders, exceeding the 278 million orders generated last year on 11.11. By the end of the 24-hour period, there had been more than 467 million orders (15x its normal average).

To put that figure into context, that’s more than one order per every person in the U.S. About 147 million more than the U.S. population, in fact.

And while it may be assumed Alibaba’s Singles’ Day is only popular in China, the stats show that buyers and sellers came from 232 countries and regions from around the world. Top countries selling to China included: the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Germany and Australia. More than 16,000 international brands had completed transactions and 33 percent of total buyers purchased from international brands or merchants.

As for other key payments figures, Alipay processed 710 million payment transactions, and during the peak hours it processed 85,900 transactions per second. AliCloud processed 140,000 transactions per second at its peak.

“This day demonstrates the power of domestic China consumption, and the Chinese consumer’s strong demand for international products,” said Daniel Zhang, Alibaba’s CEO.  “It also showcases how Alibaba uses big data, cloud computing and mobile innovations to create the best shopping experience for buyers and sellers.”

Some other noteworthy figures from 2015’s Singles’ Day:

• GMV exceeded $786 million in 5 minutes, 45 seconds after the sale begun.
• GMV exceeded $1 billion within 8 minutes of the sale starting.
• Mobile GMV exceeded $1.5 billion in 12 minutes, 28 seconds.
• GMV exceeded $3 billion in roughly half an hour.
• GMV in one hour: $3.89 billion (mobile GMV: $2.87 billion); number of mobile buyers: 27.37 million.
• Less than 8 hours into the shopping day, GMV hit $6.56 billion, which Alibaba’s blog noted was higher than total desktop GMV during the 2014 Thanksgiving/Cyber Monday shopping weekend total of $6.56 billion.
• Less than 10 hours in, total GMV topped $7.86 billion (RMB 50 billion).
• By the halfway mark of the day, total GMV had already surpassed the total GMV for 2014 ($9.3 billion).
• By 2 p.m. in China, GMV had topped $10 billion; 70 percent were mobile buyers.

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