Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba posts a record sale of $56 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) more than 23 hours before the end of its 11.11 global shopping festival. However, unlike last year, the shopping festival is taking place in two phases this year with the main event kicking off at midnight local time on Wednesday.
Alibaba said from midnight on November 1, when the global shopping festival's first shopping window opened to 12.30 am on Wednesday, total GMV exceeded 372.3 billion yuan -- $56.25 billion.
Also, the number of orders created at peak was 583,000 orders per second, the company said.
While 13 brands each surpassed 1 billion yuan in gross merchandise volume, 342 brands, including Apple, LOreal, Haier, Estee Lauder, Nike, Huawei, Midea, Lancome, Xiaomi and Adidas each surpassed 100 million yuan in GMV.
Also, the data showed that the Singles' Day sales elicited interests from consumers overseas.
As of 9 am on Wednesday, the top 10 countries/regions buying from China by GMV were the US, Russia, France, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, Australia, Korea, Japan and Canada.
The record sales were registered at a time when shopping in many markets got hampered by the pandemic, leading to surge in e-commerce. The Singles' Day sales last year amassed total GMV of 268.4 billion yuan last year.
*Edited from an IANS report