Alibaba hits Ksh.3trillion in annual singles day sales event

Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce giant, brought in $30 billion (about Ksh. 3 trillion) in sales with its annual Singles Day event on Monday.

The number of orders exceeded $1 billion (about Ksh. 102billion) after 16 hours.

According to Forbes, the 24-hour world largest shopping event, reached $1 billion in sales within one minute.

By late afternoon Alibaba had hit $30 billion.

This is close to last year’s record of $38.3 billion (about Ksh. 3.8 trillion)

This new record comes as China faces a slowing economy and stiff competition from domestic rivals.

The shopping festival, also known as the Double 11 shopping Festival, was invented to celebrate single people.

It began in 2009 and its aim was to raise awareness of online shopping.

November 11 is known as Singles’ Day because the date is written with four ones, which symbolises single people.

During the 24-hour event, which began at midnight in Singapore and Hong Kong, Alibaba offered huge discounts across its e-commerce sites such as Tmall.

It emphasized mainly on live streaming through its platforms to help sell goods.

Live streaming has become a big part of the shopping experience on Chinese e-commerce sites

Some of the top selling products according to CNBC included the 5G version of Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro smartphone, Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max.