68% of Alibaba Singles’ Day orders processed on mobile
E-commerce giant Alibaba posted £9.4bn on 11 November as a result of its Chinese day of retail encouragement, ‘Singles’ Day’, with a majority of the purchases made on mobile.
For six years, the Chinese Amazon rival has operated the special sales day urging single people to treat themselves to a bargain. Its closest possible comparison in the west is the upcoming Black Friday.
Announcing record profit, up 60 per cent on last year’s Single’s Day, Alibaba revealed that just over two-thirds (68 per cent) of orders were issued through mobile, glancing insight into the usually secretive company’s operations.
Daniel Zhang, chief executive officer of Alibaba Group, said: “This day demonstrates the power of domestic China consumption, and the Chinese consumer's strong demand for international products."
"It also showcases how Alibaba uses big data, cloud computing and mobile innovations to create the best shopping experience for buyers and sellers."
The distribution operation behind such an event is almost mind-boggling. Alibaba’s delivery partner Cainiao Logistics reportedly handled 467m delivery orders during the 24-hour shopping period – with its infrastructure coping with more than 15 times the average order load.
Shares in Alibaba dropped two per cent to $79.85 on Wednesday despite the record sales – with the market keen to see how the reduced price sales bonanza in-turns affects future sales from the company which makes up 80 per cent of China’s online purchases.
Alibaba literally paid of its £3.2bn acquisition of Chinese YouTube, Youku Tudou, (made earlier this week) in a mere few hours of trading on Wednesday.