China’s largest e-commerce platform Alibaba Group has reportedly settled roughly 69 billion yuan ($9.92 billion) in the first hour of its annual Singles’ Day on Sunday. The amount is up by 21% from last year’s early haul of 57 billion yuan.
This has by far been the largest-ever Singles’ Day to date. Alibaba Singles’ Day is the world’s biggest online sales event and last year netted Alibaba 168 billion yuan ($24.15 billion) in total sales.
This is expected to be the company’s final November sale event. The company stated that the current chief executive Daniel Zhang will take over as chairman next year. However, while sales growth remains steady, Alibaba’s stock has dropped 16 percent this year amid economic uncertainties linked to brewing trade tensions between China and the United States.
Recently, the company revised down its full-year revenue forecast, sending a chill through investors, as it said sales of big-ticket items would be impacted. To compensate, the company will take in less income from its platforms in the near term in order to retain brands and new buyers.
Also, the e-commerce giant has mentioned that there were around 180,000 brands participating in Singles’ Day, and as of 10 a.m. on Sunday sales were close to $20 billion.