Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's Singles' Day sales on Tuesday reached record-high numbers, with the online behemoth generating $5 billion in sales during the first 90 minutes of the country's biggest online shopping day of the year.
With the company's powerful initial performance, it is predicted that sales this year may reach up to $13.7 billion, a significant increase from the $9.3 billion that Alibaba generated last year, according to Business Insider.
The staggering amount, recorded in just an hour-and-a-half, is comparable to the total sales of online retailers in the U.S. for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year. More than 70 percent of the amount came from Alibaba's mobile sites, according to the company.
However, Alibaba seems to have some competition on the horizon, as rivals such as JD.com, Jumei and Vipshop have also initiated enticing Singles' Day promotions in their respective online stores. With financial backing from China's Tencent and Kingdom Holding, JD.com, in particular, may very well take a huge piece out of Alibaba's pie this year, reported CNN Money.
Tom Caporaso, CEO of Clarus Commerce, an e-commerce solutions provider that owns FreeShipping.com, believes that despite Alibaba being the dominant online retailer during the past few years, this year might be a very different story.
"Alibaba has owned this holiday for the past few years. But now JD is in the mix," he said.
Singles' Day is heralded as an anti-Valentine's Day in China and is conventionally seen as a time for bachelors and bachelorettes to celebrate the single life.
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