Alibaba’s ‘Double Eleven’ promotions on track to post record-high sales
'Behind the scenes and behind the numbers are millions of merchants and millions of partners who worked together with us to create this festival for consumers,' says Alibaba Group chief operating officer Daniel Zhang Yong
Alibaba Group Holdings is leading all mainland e-commerce companies on “Double Eleven”, the world’s biggest online shopping festival, as it posted gross merchandise volume of 27.3 billion yuan (HK$34.6 billion), nearly half of which were mobile transactions, in its first 10 hours of sales on Tuesday.
It puts Alibaba well on track to sail past the 50-billion-yuan target in gross merchandise volume for its Double Eleven campaign, which lead founder and executive chairman Jack Ma Yun had earlier forecast.
The Hangzhou-based company started its 24-hour online sales promotions on the mainland in 2009 in an event known widely on the mainland as “Singles Day”.Mobile gross merchandise volume accounted for 47.3 per cent of Alibaba’s gross merchandise volume as of 10 o’clock Tuesday morning.
Past midnight after its first hour of Double Eleven sales, the company saw its gross merchandise volume settled through its Alipay online payment platform reach 12.2 billion yuan, 46 per cent of which were mobile transactions.
Market research firm IDC forecast Alibaba’s Double Eleven campaign to haul in a hefty 52.85 billion yuan in gross merchandise volume.
That amount represented roughly the gross merchandise volume last year of all mainland e-commerce companies with online sales promotions on November 11, according to Kitty Fok, the managing director at IDC China.