Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) set a sales record on Singles Day, the world’s largest 24-hour shopping event.
Gross merchandise value, a figure that shows sales across Alibaba’s shopping platforms, topped last year’s 213.5 billion yuan record (nearly $30.5 billion U.S.) on Monday afternoon local time, and kept rising through the rest of the day.
It was the 11th edition of the annual Singles Day event — also called the Double 11 shopping festival because it falls on Nov. 11. During the 24-hour period, which began at midnight in Singapore and Hong Kong, Alibaba offered huge discounts across its e-commerce sites such as Tmall.
Alibaba’s Singles Day sales last year exceeded the spending by consumers during any single U.S. shopping holiday such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
To help boost sales, Alibaba expanded the number of discounted items in this year’s event and put a heavy emphasis on livestreaming via its platforms to help sell goods. Livestreaming has become a big part of the shopping experience on Chinese e-commerce sites.
Online personalities often speak to their followers and talk about products as well. On Wednesday, Kim Kardashian did a livestream announcing her fragrance brand KKW will be available for sale on Tmall.
"Alibaba Group’s mission," read Monday’s news release, "is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The company aims to build the future infrastructure of commerce. It envisions that its customers will meet, work and live at Alibaba, and that it will be a company that lasts at least 102 years."
Shares plummeted $4.87, or 2.6%, to $182.21
