According to a report from the Wall Street Journal "the country's biggest online shopping day of the year—also the biggest in the world—just set another record".
"After only about half a day, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. said sales on its shopping sites had topped $3.1 billion—last year's total for the one-day 11.11 Shopping Festival.
By the end of Monday, the company had recorded 35.19 billion yuan ($5.78 billion) in transactions. Last year on Nov. 11, Chinese online shoppers spent more in 24 hours than the $2.5 billion that Americans spent online on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
The Alibaba Nov. 11 sale is a tradition that started in 2009, when 27 merchants on the company's Tmall site offered discounts to perk up sales during an otherwise period.
This year's jump in sales showed the rising power of the Chinese consumer and the increasing presence of e-commerce in a country where the brick-and-mortar retail infrastructure isn't as well-developed as it is in the U.S. It also shows the rising power of Chinese brands, with smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc. and electronics and appliances supplier Haier Electronics Group Co. among the top sellers.
In the opening three minutes, Xiaomi said it sold 110,000 of its new Mi 3 phone and another 110,000 of its Hongmi phone, totaling 178 million yuan in transactions. After half an hour, the company's Tmall store had 300 million yuan in transactions, it said.
But "the numbers aren't what we care about today. What we care about today is what is behind the numbers," Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma told reporters at the company's headquarters. "Behind the numbers we can see the power of the market." He said more competition and diversity in e-commerce would help strengthen what remains a burgeoning industry in China.
