Alibaba breaks Singles Day record with over $30.0bn in sales so far

Chinese e-commerce retailer Alibaba broke its sales record on Singles Day and has so far already made over $30.0bn-worth of sales.

Singles Day is the world’s largest 24-hour shopping event and the gross merchandise value (GMV) shows that Alibaba surpassed last year’s 213.5bn yuan record (nearly $30.5bn) by Monday afternoon local time

GMV hit $12.01bn in the first hour and within an hour and a half, Alibaba’s sales exceeded had already eclipsed the total reached on Singles Day 2016.

Alibaba offered huge discounts across its e-commerce sites such as Tmall.

The online retailer usually exceeds spending by consumers during any single US shopping holiday such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday but it expanded the number of discounted items available in this year’s event to boost sales further.

Alibaba put a heavy emphasis on live-streaming via its platforms to help sell goods, with the practice having become a big part of the shopping experience on Chinese e-commerce sites.

Top-selling products this year included the 5G version of Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro smartphone, as well as Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max.

Other Chinese e-commerce platforms like JD.com and regular brick-and-mortar stores also take part and the event is starting to gain traction outside China as well.