This year’s Singles’ Day shopping festival, also known as Double 11, saw consumption and business activities in the world’s second-largest economy recover, as both Alibaba (NYSE: BABA; HKEX: 9988) and JD.com (NASDAQ: JD; HKEX: 9618) exceeded last year’s records.
Alibaba, and JD.com, reported total consumer spending of RMB 498.2 billion (USD 74.1 billion) and RMB 271.5 billion (USD 41 billion) respectively, compared to 2019, when Alibaba reported USD 38.4 billion on the day of November 11, and JD.com USD 29 billion from November 1 to 11.
This year, Alibaba’s Singles’ Day is no longer a 24-hour affair, as it now includes a pre-sale period and lasts for nearly a month in total.
“Aided by ongoing travel restrictions, China’s Singles’ Day continues to amaze,” Brock Silvers, CIO at Kaiyuan Capital Hong Kong, told KrASIA. “While GMV data may not adequately account for discounting, cannibalization, and returns, the results are nonetheless a strong positive indicator for China’s consumer economy.”
However, for the first time, it was another festival, China’s 6/18, to log the largest total gross merchandise value (GMV) for Alibaba and JD.com, at USD 137 billion, surpassing this year’s 11/11 combined sales of USD 115.1 billion.
“The first reaction to seeing the data (of this year’s Double 11) was that the consumption depressed by the epidemic had been released on Double 11,” Tian Xuan, vice dean of Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance told KrASIA.
“The consumption potential of Chinese people is still very large, a small drop in price creates a large increase in demand,” he added.
Learn more about this year’s 11/11 online shopping festival with this graphical breakdown.
