Alibaba Group Holding kicked off direct sales for its annual Singles’ Day shopping festival on Monday, with initial figures surpassing last year’s performance – a sign of strengthening domestic consumption during China’s biggest online retail event.
Since direct sales began on Taobao and Tmall at 8pm on Monday, 80 brands had exceeded 100 million yuan (US$13.8 million) in sales within the first hour, while more than 30,000 brands doubled their takings from a year earlier, according to data released by the company.
Alibaba, which owns the Post, said this year’s event had shown “faster growth”.
As in previous years, beauty products remained one of the strongest categories, with eight brands each surpassing 100 million yuan in sales within the first 10 minutes.
Consumer electronics also posted strong results, boosted by the recent launches of Apple’s iPhone 17 series and Xiaomi’s 17 series in September.
Within the first two hours, sales of iPhone on Apple’s official Tmall store exceeded the full-day total for the same period last year, according to Alibaba, which did not disclose specific figures.
Other popular electronic products that generated more than 10 million yuan in sales within the first hour included Apple’s AirPods 4 and Watch S11, Xiaomi’s 17 Pro Max, and the Nintendo Switch console, the company said.
