In 17 hours, Alibaba’s Sales Reach $11.5billion

" Alibaba is in new record territory. The company matched its 2014 Singles’ Day record of $9.3 billion in sales in half the time.

We took a look at Alibaba’s sales performance seventeen hours after the launch of Singles’ Day 2015. As expected, sales were frantic in the first two hours of the event, rapidly reaching $5 billion (31.3 billion yaun). The rate of sales growth decelerated in the early hours of Wednesday and picked up again around 9am local time in China. Sales numbers maintained a strong momentum through the morning and showed increasing pace of growth with 10 hours to go. This gives us a reason to believe this year’s Singles’ Day can easily reach IDC’s projected $13.7billion by the end of the event.

We also took a look at the promotional campaigns of international apparel brands, which are at the center of attention this year. The globalization of Singles’ Day is a key theme in 2015 as Alibaba announced that it expects over 5,000 international brands to participate in the event.

Browsing through the product offerings on the various platforms we found that TMall is focusing on introducing new retailers such as Macy’s, Costco and Sainsbury’s on its Tmall Global site, while JD.com is betting on a differentiation strategy that is built around premium brands, such as Burberry, Gucci and Bally.

On Tmall Global, we found a country specific section, which includes products from countries such as the US, the UK, and Japan listed on separate pages. The products have a heavy emphasis on beauty, health and personal care.

On Tmall, we found more local brands than international brands. Even so, some international brands we found on the platform include Uniqlo, I.T Apparels, and French Connection, while the featured sportswear brands included Asics and Adidas... "

Read & download the full report at Fung Business Intelligence Centre.

Image Credit: SCMP