Alibaba and JD record surge in Singles Day sales

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd achieved record high sales of 268.4 billion yuan ($38.4 billion) during its Singles Day shopping extravaganza, an increase of 26 percent compared to 2018, as buyers swarmed the e-commerce giant's online bazaars.

JD, another e-commerce heavyweight and a latecomer to join the frenzy, reported its accumulated sales during the shopping carnival held from Nov 1 to Nov 11 reached a staggering 204.4 billion yuan.

More than 200,000 brands participated in the 24-hour shopping frenzy at Alibaba's online marketplaces, with one million new products for sales and the turnover of 299 brands surpassing 100 million yuan, such as Apple, Dyson, Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, Lancome, Nike and Adidas.

"We showed the world what the future of consumption looks like for brands and consumers," said Jiang Fan, president of Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall. "We are meeting the growing demand of Chinese consumers and helping them upgrade their lifestyles, while introducing new users to our digital economy from across China and around the world."

It took just 96 seconds for Alibaba to net 10 billion yuan worth of gross merchandise volume just after midnight Monday, faster than last year's 125 seconds to cross the same threshold.

Transaction volume hit 100 billion yuan in one hour, three minutes, 59 seconds. The figure amounted to 213.5 billion yuan - last year's total sales - as of 4:31 pm Monday.

The sales of air conditioners surpassed 100 million yuan within 20 seconds after the clock struck midnight on Nov 11, and more than 10,000 units of 65-inch televisions were sold within just eight seconds, according to JD.

The Singles Day shopping gala, which is also the world's busiest online shopping day, has generated more online sales than the total revenues of Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States combined.

Singles Day uses the day Nov 11, or 11/11, to symbolize the solitariness of the four digits to represent being uninvolved in a relationship.