China E-Commerce Platforms’ Sales Surge on Singles’ Day

China’s e-commerce platforms disclosed their Double 11 shopping festival performance and all set new records. 

Chinese giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. on Thursday announced that its Double 11 Global Shopping Festival generated 498.2 billion yuan ($74.1 billion) in gross merchandise volume (GMV) during the 11-day campaign from Nov. 1 to Nov. 11, an increase of 26% compared to the same period in 2019. 

What’s more, over 470 brands achieved more than 100 million yuan in GMV. The Alibaba digital infrastructure handled 583,000 orders per second during peak activity, “demonstrating the strength and scale of our underlying technology platform,” according to Alibaba. 

Alibaba’s logistics affiliate Cainiao Network processed more than 2.32 billion delivery orders cumulatively over the 11-day period. 

According to Alibaba, the United States was the top country selling to China by GMV. Other top-selling countries to China include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and the UK. 

On AliExpress, the sale of goods in overseas warehouses in the first minute of Nov. 11 was equivalent to the amount sold the first hour of last year’s 11.11, Alibaba said. 

Delivery platform Dada Group announced that JDDJ, its local on-demand retail platform, released its Singles Day sales report. 

Sales of the platform on Nov. 11 were more than double over last year. Order delivery was sped up, with the average delivery time shortened by 8 minutes compared to last year. 

Meanwhile, JD.comInc’s transaction volume over the same period totaled 271.5 billion yuan ($40.97 billion), more than the 204.4 billion yuan it recorded in 2019.

Singles’ Day is usually a one-day sales event, the world’s biggest, eclipsing Black Friday in the United States. Many merchants offer deals during the event.

SEE ALSO: Live-streaming E-commerce Drives Singles Day Sales, Prompts Surge in Job Seekers

China’s economy recovered further from COVID-19 in the third quarter, according to data released in October by the National Bureau of Statistics. The world’s second-largest economy reported a 4.9% GDP growth from a year ago.