Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) opted not to disclose the final sales tally of its annual Singles’ Day shopping festival for the first time since it began the event in 2009, saying only that results were in line with last year.
Last year’s 8.5 percent rise in gross merchandise value (GMV) for Alibaba’s platforms had been its lowest yet, following a 26 percent jump in 2020. Before then, the festival was a one-day event.
The e-commerce platform said in a statement early on Saturday that the event had “delivered results in line with last year’s GMV performance despite macro challenges and COVID-related impact.”
Photo: Reuters
Growth has been slowing in recent editions of Singles’ Day — the world’s biggest online shopping festival that has, despite its name, evolved into a lengthy event and become a barometer of Chinese retail demand. This year’s event ended on Friday.
Other indicators showed that Chinese consumers clutched their wallets tight this year and continued seeking relatively economical home brands over pricier labels, as consumer sentiment has been hit by the country’s stringent COVID-19 curbs and a sharply slowing economy.
Alibaba and other Chinese e-commerce firms holding Singles’ Day shopping events together logged 934 billion yuan (US$131.4 billion) in sales, up 2.9 percent, Chinese consultancy Syntun (星圖數據) said on Saturday.
Citigroup Inc analysts said they were conservatively forecasting Alibaba’s GMV for the event to range from 545 billion yuan to 560 billion yuan, with growth of 0.9 percent to 3.6 percent.
The company’s Tmall (天貓) marketplace offered Singles’ Day deals on more than 17 million products, 3 million more than last year, with a record-matching 290,000 brands participating.
Alibaba did not say which brands sold well, but said sales of high-tech beauty devices, such as gadgets to cool and lift facial skin, had surged about 5,570 percent from last year, while carpet cleaners and smart kitchen appliances had been selling extremely well.
Rival JD.com Inc (京東) also did not publish GMV or sales growth, but said Apple Inc sold more than 1 billion yuan worth of products in the first minute of the event’s final sales period on Thursday evening, which is marked by deeper discounts.
During the final 10 minutes, turnover for 87 international beauty brands — including Estee Lauder, L’Oreal and L’Occitane — tripled from last year, JD.com said.
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