E-commerce giant Alibaba said Thursday that Chinese and international
consumers spent more than 14 billion dollars in the world’s biggest online
shopping day, as it sought to soothe worries over China’s slowing economy.
The November 11 “Singles Day”, which fell on Wednesday, has evolved into the
globe’s biggest online shopping festival since Alibaba began using the date
in 2009 to promote sales through its platforms.
The 14.3 billion dollars worth of merchandise volume this year smashed
through
last year’s tally of 9.3 billion dollars, according to figures from
Alibaba. “This day demonstrates the power of domestic China consumption and
the Chinese consumer’s strong demand for international products,” Alibaba
chief executive officer Daniel Zhang said in a statement.
The total was more than double the 6.6 billion dollar recorded last year in
online buying during the peak US retail period, the five days from the
Thanksgiving holiday to the following Monday, according to Internet
analytics
firm comScore.
Alibaba’s New York-listed stock has been hammered by worries over the
Chinese economy, serving as a proxy for slowing growth. It closed down 1.94
percent at 79.85 dollars on Wednesday despite the shopping festival.
Chinese growth hit a 24-year low in 2014 and has slowed further this year,
as it tries to shift from investment and exports to domestic consumption.
Under what leaders call the “new normal”, the country logged its worst
economic performance since the global financial crisis in the third quarter,
with the economy growing just 6.9 percent.
In a bright spot, October retail sales — a key indicator of consumer
spending — jumped 11.0 percent from a year earlier, the fastest increase
since December last year, official figures showed Wednesday.
Alibaba stands to benefit as its Taobao platform dominates the
consumer-to-consumer online market, while its Tmall platform is believed to
command more than half the Chinese market for business-to-consumer
transactions.
Alibaba’s online payment unit, Alipay, processed 710 million transactions
during the shopping festival, the statement said, peaking at almost 86,000
per
second.
The number of buyers using mobile devices — a key priority for Alibaba
—
reached 95 million through Taobao and Tmall, it said, without giving a
figure
for total buyers. (AFP)
Image creditL AFP and CNBC