Alibaba Singles’ Day crosses $30Bn in GMV, but growth slows

Alibaba’s Single’s Day are pretty grand events. This year, the company has opened up its event to buyers across the globe, and the decision has proved to be a humongous success within the first few minutes of sale commencement. Pulling all stops and breaking previous records, the Chinese retailer clocked in sales worth $1.44 Billion within the first few minutes of commencement of sales.

In totality, the company netted in sales of over $30 Billion on the Singles’ Day, its biggest ever since the special day started seeing the ecommerce giant do this event. Howeve, despite all those numbers, the event’s annual growth dropped to its slowest rate.

Despite the record haul, the annual sales growth rate fell from 39 percent to 27 percent, at the low end of analyst estimates, and the slowest rate in the event’s 10-year history. Alibaba’s sales dip also brings to highlight the impact of US sanctions on China, which have come up due to the ongoing trade war between the two countries.

Xiaomi, Apple and Dyson all did roaring business and occupied the position of top 3 sellers at the Single’s day extravaganza, during the opening minutes

Single’s Day, which started off as an annual retail celebration which was originally dedicated to the nation’s unattached, has become a money spinner for Alibaba, as well as for all the retailers that list their products on it. Begun as something of a joke, Single’s Day has grown into one of the biggest retail events across the globe. Last year, the company recorded 39 percent growth year-over-year and 168 billion yuan in transactions.

Still, Alibaba is intent on beating 2017’s 39 percent growth and 168 billion yuan in transactions, a bloodbath mega sales haul, that dwarfed Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. And by the looks of the tweet thats shown below, Alibaba is well on its way to break that record by miiiillllleessss.

Earlier, Alibaba had already generated more sales on Singles’ Day 2018 – just 10 minutes into the 24-hour shopping event – than Amazon is estimated to have reached in its record-setting 2018 Prime Day. Earlier yesterday, in a series of number-revealing tweets, the company had announced that it has received over 657 Million orders for delivery, way ahead of the record numbers that the company clocked in 2016.

In terms of GMV, the company had exceeded over $20 Billion in GMV within 20 hourse, making it the biggest ever Singles’ Day sale for Alibaba at that time itself. This also makes Singles’ Day 2018, the biggest such event in the history of internet commerce, dwarfing similar initiatives from Amazon and others across the globe.

What is also interesting, that even though online sales on Singles’ Day continue to soar, offline has picked up massive pace, fulfilling Alibaba’s mission of making this a mixed commerce event. To set an example for the same, the company has posted a video, showing a massive rush of people storming into Alibaba investment company Easyhome, China’s second-largest home-improvement supplies and furniture chain, at 12:00:01 last night.