Alibaba gathers more than $14B in sales on China's 'Singles' Day'

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Just halfway into this year's Singles Day shopping event, Alibaba has eclipsed its record sales result from 2014.

As “Armenpress” reports referring CNBC that the e-commerce giant says it generated $10 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) within 14 hours of the start of the shopping event — well above last year's record of $9.3 billion, which Alibaba surpassed by 1 p.m. in China on Wednesday. It's also well above the $2.4 billion sold on Cyber Monday, the biggest online sales day in the U.S.

GMV is the total amount settled through mobile wallet Alipay across Alibaba's domestic and international platforms.

Ever since the holiday officially began at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday, Alibaba has giving sales updates. In the first eight minutes of this year's sale, the company generated more than $1 billion in sales, beating last year's record of 17 minutes to hit the billion-dollar mark.

By the time the first 17 minutes and 29 seconds of the retail extravaganza had passed, Alibaba clinched its second billion and by the first hour, it had secured $3.9 billion. After the first 90 minutes, that number had swelled to $5 billion.

Known as the world's biggest 24-hour online shopping event, Singles Day falls on November 11th every year. 2015 could see the event record its best performance yet, with 56 percent of mainland Internet users expected to increase spending from last year, according to a recent Nielsen survey.

This year, mobile sales are a key driver for Alibaba.

Mobile accounted for 73.9 percent, or $2.9 billion, of total GMV in the first hour on Wednesday, compared to 45.7 percent during last year's sale, while the total number of mobile buyers exceeded more than 27 million.

The impressive numbers are undoubtedly a boon for Alibaba, which has previously struggled with mobile strategy amid rising competition from other Internet giants such as Tencent.

Photo by AFP