Alibaba Smashes Records On China's Singles Day (BABA) | ||
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Shanghai (AFP) - Alibaba said $2 billion of goods were sold in the first hour of its Singles Day shopping bonanza in China Tuesday, maintaining the day's dominance as the world's biggest retail event as it went global for the first time. The ecommerce giant said that amount was more than a third of the $5.8 billion full-day sales recorded on the same day last year. Alibaba has been pushing November 11 as Singles Day -- so named for the number of ones in the date -- since 2009 as it looks to tap an expanding army of Internet shoppers in China, which has the world's biggest online population. Singles Day already surpassed major shopping festivals in the US in terms of transaction value last year, toppling the combined online sales of $3.7 billion recorded on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to an estimate by Internet analytics firm comScore. The day was originally marketed as an "anti-Valentine's Day" in China featuring hefty discounts to lure the country's singletons and price-sensitive buyers. It has been expanded globally this year to include overseas merchants and customers. Within the first hour and 12 seconds, more than 12.23 billion yuan ($2 billion) of deals were settled on both domestic and international retail marketplaces, Alibaba said in a statement, adding that 45.7 percent of the transactions were made via mobile devices. Headquartered in the eastern city of Hangzhou, Alibaba debuted its shares in New York two months ago with a record-breaking $25 billion initial public offering. The giant operates China's most popular online shopping platform, Taobao, which is estimated to hold more than 90 percent of the online market for consumer-to-consumer transactions. The company does not sell products directly but acts as an electronic middleman. It also owns other marketplaces, including business-to-consumer platform Tmall. More than 27,000 brands and merchants are participating in this year's Singles Day, while consumers in more than 220 countries and regions will be able to join the 24-hour spending spree, the statement said. Some 500 million packages are expected to be shipped during this year's festival, up 50 percent from a year earlier, the state postal service told state media last month. But some Internet users were less impressed, accusing some merchants of fooling consumers by raising prices beforehand. "I don't know why people are so excited about the 'Double 11' (November 11). It's meaningless as they all hike prices before offering a discount," one wrote on China's Twitter-like blogging service Sina Weibo. Alibaba said last week its third-quarter net profit jumped 15 percent year-on-year to $1.1 billion, its first earnings report since successfully completing the world's biggest stock offering in September. Revenue soared by 53.7 percent from the same quarter last year to $2.7 billion, it said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Alibaba Smashes Records On China's Singles Day (BABA) | ||
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Shanghai (AFP) - Alibaba said $2 billion of goods were sold in the first hour of its Singles Day shopping bonanza in China Tuesday, maintaining the day's dominance as the world's biggest retail event as it went global for the first time. The ecommerce giant said that amount was more than a third of the $5.8 billion full-day sales recorded on the same day last year. Alibaba has been pushing November 11 as Singles Day -- so named for the number of ones in the date -- since 2009 as it looks to tap an expanding army of Internet shoppers in China, which has the world's biggest online population. Singles Day already surpassed major shopping festivals in the US in terms of transaction value last year, toppling the combined online sales of $3.7 billion recorded on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to an estimate by Internet analytics firm comScore. The day was originally marketed as an "anti-Valentine's Day" in China featuring hefty discounts to lure the country's singletons and price-sensitive buyers. It has been expanded globally this year to include overseas merchants and customers. Within the first hour and 12 seconds, more than 12.23 billion yuan ($2 billion) of deals were settled on both domestic and international retail marketplaces, Alibaba said in a statement, adding that 45.7 percent of the transactions were made via mobile devices. Headquartered in the eastern city of Hangzhou, Alibaba debuted its shares in New York two months ago with a record-breaking $25 billion initial public offering. The giant operates China's most popular online shopping platform, Taobao, which is estimated to hold more than 90 percent of the online market for consumer-to-consumer transactions. The company does not sell products directly but acts as an electronic middleman. It also owns other marketplaces, including business-to-consumer platform Tmall. More than 27,000 brands and merchants are participating in this year's Singles Day, while consumers in more than 220 countries and regions will be able to join the 24-hour spending spree, the statement said. Some 500 million packages are expected to be shipped during this year's festival, up 50 percent from a year earlier, the state postal service told state media last month. But some Internet users were less impressed, accusing some merchants of fooling consumers by raising prices beforehand. "I don't know why people are so excited about the 'Double 11' (November 11). It's meaningless as they all hike prices before offering a discount," one wrote on China's Twitter-like blogging service Sina Weibo. Alibaba said last week its third-quarter net profit jumped 15 percent year-on-year to $1.1 billion, its first earnings report since successfully completing the world's biggest stock offering in September. Revenue soared by 53.7 percent from the same quarter last year to $2.7 billion, it said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Things You Need To Know In Markets This Morning | ||
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Alibaba Posts Record Sales On Singles Day. On the world's largest online shopping day of the year, China's Alibaba shattered last year's full-day sales of $5.75 billion, pulling in $5.8 billion by the afternoon. Aldi Is Hiring. German discount supermarket Aldi said it will create 35,000 news jobs in the UK by opening 1,000 new stores over the next 8 years. Aldi, along with other price-cut retailers in Britain, have been taking market share from the "big four" supermarkets, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, and Sainsbury's. GoPro Is Selling More Shares. Five months after its $491 million IPO, American camera maker GoPro is selling up to $800 million of stock, according to an SEC filing on Monday. In an email to employees, CEO Nick Woodman said: "I plan to sell a portion of my holdings in GoPro, but no one should misunderstand my commitment to the company or our vision." Asia Closed In The Green. Japan's Nikkei closed up 2.05% and the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index closed up 0.21%. "The Nikkei stock average rising to a 7-year high as speculators snapped up futures and call options as they wagered that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may postpone a planned sales tax increase," Reuters writes. The US And China Reach A Deal. In breakthrough negotiations, the Obama administration said it had achieved a deal with China to eliminate tariffs on a range of technology products. “With trade in tech goods surpassing $4 trillion annually, the commercial significance of these negotiations is obvious,” Myron Brilliant, the head of international affairs of the United States Chamber of Commerce, told The New York Times. Mondelez Is Expanding. Mondelez International, the maker of Nabisco biscuits and Cadbury chocolate, plans to pay $370 million for an 80% stake in Kinh Do, a Vietnamese snack business. "Our significant investment in Kinh Do and Vietnam is a perfect fit for our growth strategy in Asia Pacific, strengthening our core snacking categories in a high-growth dynamic market," Mondelez executive Tim Cofer said in a statement. Unilever Sues Egg-Free Mayo Maker. Unilever, the maker of Hellmann's mayonnaise, is suing a startup that makes eggless mayo for false advertising and fraud. In the lawsuit, Unilever claims that Hampton Creek's Just Mayo is hurting sales of its own sandwich spread products. McDonald's Sales Fell Last Month. Worldwide sales at the fast-food giant dropped 0.5% in October, which is better than the 2.2% decline that economists expected. A Divorce Ruling Makes History. The CEO of Continental Resources, Harold Hamm, has been ordered to pay his ex-wife $999.5 million in a divorce ruling. The payout could make Sue Ann Hamm one of the 100 wealthiest women in America. Samsung Has Its Eyes On Vietnam. The electronics maker plans to invest $3 billion (£1.8 billion) to build a second smartphone plant in Vietnam's capital of Hanoi. "Vietnam is in a unique position," Lam Nguyen, Ho Chi Minh City-based country director at International Data Corp. told Bloomberg. "You have a motivated workforce and in terms of labour costs, they are cheaper than China, cheaper than Thailand.” Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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