Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba said on Wednesday that the total gross merchandise volume (GMV) on its platforms has surpassed RMB 372.3 billion (USD 56.4 billion) between November 1 and 0:30 am on November 11, the first 10 days of this year’s extended “Singles’ Day” shopping festival.
“Alibaba has been able to enable a strong rebound for 250,000 merchants following the impact of the pandemic in China,” the company said in a press release without revealing a further breakdown of the data.
The internet giant added that the number of per-second orders placed during the shopping event so far has peaked at 583,000, showing the scalability and strength of Alibaba’s digital infrastructure.
“This first-phase data is a sign of slowdown,” Zhuang Shuai, a retail veteran and founder of market research firm Bailian Consulting, told KrASIA on Wednesday. Due to the fact that this year’s promotion period has been extended, there isn’t any comparable data from previous years.
Alibaba generated RMB 268.4 billion (USD 38.4 billion) in GMV in the Singles’ Day promotion on November 11, 2019, 26% more than the RMB 213.5 billion (USD 30.5 billion) sales on the same day in 2018, marking the slowest growth rate since the creation of the shopping festival.
JD.com, one of Alibaba’s rivals, hosted a 11-day promotion for many years. The company revealed that the total GMV between November 1 and 0:09 am on November 11 exceeded RMB 2 trillion (USD 302.3 billion), bringing it close to the RMB 2.044 trillion record for the entire 11-day period in 2019.