Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) has announced that it had registered processed transactions worth $1 billion within the first five minutes of Singles Day.
Singles Day is Alibaba’s biggest shopping event and has been likened to “Black Friday” in the US. The shopping event kicked off at midnight on Friday and had clocked in mobile transactions worth more than $1 billion within the first five minutes. The transactions were registered through Alipay. The Chinese retail giant also reported a gross merchandise volume (GMV) worth $7.2 billion within the first two hours after the event was kicked off. The firm also reported that Alipay mobile transactions accounted for 84% of the entire GMV.
“Chinese consumers purchased more in the first hour of 11.11 — $5.2 billion — this year than the entire 24 hours in 2013,” reported Alibaba’s Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang.
The Alibaba CEO further added that the impressive numbers are a testament to the power held by Chinese consumers and also how much they embrace online shopping as part of their lifestyle. This year’s Single’s Day is the most successful so far for the company. It has achieved more than $13 billion within the first 12 hours of the shopping event, thus setting a new record.
The reports highlight China’s steady rise to become the largest mobile payment market in the world, easily surpassing the U.S with a transaction volume of $235 billion. The country is experiencing a rapid adoption of online retail and is expected to achieve $6.3 trillion worth of online payments by 2020.
“In the US if you log on to Amazon, it’s a chore. But here in China shopping is entertainment,” pointed out Alibaba’s vice chairman Joe Tsai.
The Singles Day shopping festival has become so significant in Chinese culture that there were celebrations later on in the day. The shopping festival was also streamed live on mobile devices.
Alibaba stock closed the latest trading session at $94.34.