Alibaba smashed its own records with 91.2bn yuan of goods transacted.
Centre of the Singles Day universe? Image: Alibaba Group |
Singles Day, 11:11, is China's answer to Black Friday or Cyber Monday in the US, only far bigger.
China's largest online sales platform Alibaba broke last year's record of $9.3bn in less than 14 hours and eventually hit $14.3bn for the day, making it more than ten times larger than Cyber Monday, which saw just $1.35bn in goods transacted last year.
Alibaba even had a running tally on its website that showed the amount of goods transacted. The figure was relayed on screens around several of China's most popular shopping centres. The company also released some fascinating figures on the types of products bought.
Amongst the eye watering statistics are invaluable insights into changes in Chinese netizens' behaviour. This year, 71% of Singles Day sales came from mobile devices, which placed an average of 120,000 orders per minute.
Furthremore, over 180,000 bricks and mortar stores took place, showing the value of online-to-offline market in capturing consumers.
The company's eccentric founder Jack Ma predicted that future growth would be around 50% year-on-year for the next five years. While the discounts are clearly unsustainable, companies try to use the event to reach consumers with new purchasing ideas in an attempt to change their preferences and hopefully win new customers who will pay full price in the future.