Alibaba, Rival JD.com Set Singles Day Sales Records

(RTTNews) - Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) and rival JD.com (JD) have set new sales records for the "Singles Day" online shopping event.

Alibaba said Sunday that it generated gross merchandise volume or GMV of 213.5 billion yuan, or $30.8 billion on November 11, 2018, representing an increase of 27 percent compared to 2017.

The Singles Day shopping festival began in 2009 with participation from just 27 merchants as an event for merchants and consumers to raise awareness of the value in online shopping.

Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang conceived 11.11 as a concept a decade ago, turning Single's Day on the Chinese calendar into the world's largest annual shopping event.

This is the tenth edition of the annual Singles Day event, which falls on November 11 and is also called the 11.11 shopping festival. Alibaba offers huge discounts across its e-commerce sites, including Tmall, during the 24-hour period.

Alibaba noted that more than 180,000 brands participated this year and over 40 percent of consumers made purchases from international brands.

The company said that 237 brands exceeded 100 million yuan in GMV, including international brands such as Apple, Dyson, Kindle, Estée Lauder, L'Oréal, Nestlé, Gap, Nike and Adidas.

Singapore-based e-commerce site Lazada participated in 11.11 this year as part of the Alibaba ecosystem, bringing the festival to consumers in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Alibaba's rival JD.com (JD) said its transaction volume reached a record 159.8 billion yuan, or about $23 billion, during the period from November 1 to 11 for the Singles Day Shopping Festival.

JD.com noted that during the sales period, global brands such as Apple, Dell, Dyson, L'Oréal, SK-II, Pampers, and many others saw impressive sales performance. Products from the U.S., Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, and South Korea proved especially popular.

During the period, JD.com sold more than 400 million items offered by its Fast Moving Consumer Goods and Foods business group.

The company noted that the amount of imported fresh food sold doubled versus the same period last year. Premium smartphones from domestic and international brands were also popular, with some brands seeing sales double compared with the same period last year, according to the company.