At least $2 billion worth of goods have been sold by Alibaba during the first hour of its annual "Singles Day" event, exceeding sales recorded last year and in the previous years, reports said.
Alizila.com confirmed this, posting on Twitter, "[01:00] In a little over an hour, the #1111sale exceeds USD 2 billion in GMV; 45%+ of it coming from mobile #Alibaba #singlesday #China."
In a more recent Twitter post, Alizila revealed that sales have already exceeded $5 billion. To quote, "[11:49] @AlibabaGroup's #1111sale exceeded 2013 Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday online sales of USD 5.29 billion."
Reuters noted that Alibaba sold $3.1 billion last year during the first half of the "Singles' Day" event. This amount was equal to the amount it sold during 2012's whole day event.
For this year, the company is expecting to break records through big discounts. Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba, said in a report from BBC News that he is expecting that the number of goods to be sold will be "scary." He shared that at least 200 million goods are seen to be shipped from the orders.
BBC News has reported that over 150 million packages were shipped last year, grossing $5.75 billion.
For this year, at least half of the $2 billion worth of goods was sold during the first 18 minutes of the event, Reuters noted.
Some foreign brands have also joined the event for the first time. The list includes Calvin Klein, Blue Nile Inc, Costco Wholesale Corp., Origins Natural Resources Inc., and Inditex Group, Forbes reported.
According to CNBC, the "Singles' Day" event is being done every November 11 of the year. The date was chosen since it has four ones (11/11). It also noted that it started out as a joke but was then eventually adapted.
CNBC, quoting Ben Cavender of China Market Research Group, said that this year's event is expected to generate about 50 billion yuan or $8.17 billion, 40 percent up from last year's sales.
But a separate prediction made by Forrester senior analyst Vanessa Zeng said that this year's sales could even go higher to as much as 60 billion yuan or $9.8 billion, noting of the significant continuous growth in mobile shopping.
"Alibaba uses this event to reward consumers and reinforce its e-commerce influence in China market...The Singles' Day event has become the most influential e-commerce campaign in China. Almost all e-tailers and even offline retailers join this event. Alibaba tries to demonstrate its leading position and gather as many merchants as possible to its platform through this event, and hit its competitors," CNBC quoted Zeng as saying.
The "Singles' Day" event started in 2009. It sold at least $7 million that year, the report added.