Singles' Day Breaks Online Shopping Record

Source: Reuters/Aly Song - Screen Showing Value of Goods Being Traded During Alibaba's Singles Day

Singles' Day, the annual online shopping event from Chinese giant Alibaba, has broken last year's record of $30 billion in sales within the first 16.5 hours of the 24 hour event. For perspective, that amount is the equivalent of over 80% of Amazon's online store sales from the entire last quarter. Sales hit $1 billion within the first minute and eight seconds, and Alibaba expects over 500 million users to make purchases during this year's event. 

Singles Day Facts:

• More than 90% of purchases on Singles' Day occur on mobile phones.
• More than one billion delivery orders were received during last years event
• Compared to 6 m 7s in 2013, it took just 21 seconds for sales to hit $140 million last year

Source: Reuters- Global Shopping Event Sales

Singles Day began in 2009 and is today by far the biggest online sales event worldwide, regularly beating out Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined (Cyber Monday in the United States took in $7.8 billion last year). This is the first time the event is being held without Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, who stepped down this September as chairman to "start a new life."

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