Alibaba achieves new sales record for "Singles Day"

Is the devil hiding in the details? Some want to believe it, a few hours after the clap of the end of the "Singles Day", raised in high-mbad trade by the Chinese giant e-commerce Alibaba.

On the flip side, this day for which Alibaba had even glanced towards space, is that of a record of transactions: 213.5 billion yuan, about 27 billion euros and an increase of nearly 21% compared to the previous year.

Enough to allow Jack Ma, founder of the group to retire with a broad smile and strengthened in the ambitions he continues to feed for Alibaba. Because it is he who has transformed what was originally a simple student festival in the 90s into a rendezvous for Chinese e-commerce and he dreams of internationalizing the world. image of the American "Black Friday".

German products in the top 5 purchases

And the bet seems largely successful. According to figures released by Alibaba, 40% of consumers bought non-Chinese products. The top 5 countries of origin of these products are Japan, the United States, South Korea, Australia and Germany.

In addition, 237 brands, including Apple, Dyson, Kindle, Estée Lauder, L'Oreal, Nestle, Gap, Nike and Adidas, surpbaded the symbolic mark of 100 million yuan (13 million euros) turnover.

Beyond the sums spent, according to the first report made by Alibaba, the number of parcels to be shipped also reaches a record: it will exceed one billion shipments, against 812 million in 2017.

The effects of the trade war?

But if the figures are certainly flattering, after 24 hours of show, some badysts are less enthusiastic about the face of this event. And note that the record of the previous year had been beaten much faster than this year.

And if the 2018 figure is a record, the year-on-year sales growth is finally lower than the 39% recorded in 2017. The fault, according to them, the difficulties of the Chinese economy that starts to to feel the effects of the commercial war with Washington, but also to the multiplication of manifestations of the same type.

Online shopping remains low in China

A phenomenon that does not worry Joe Tsai, co-founder and Executive Vice President of Alibaba Group. While acknowledging that there is nothing to say that there will be no short-term slowdown in the growth of the group, there is "nothing worrying," according to him in the downturn in the economy.

This is because the available figures show that the Chinese middle clbad continues to buy, especially cosmetics, even though online shopping is far from being the majority in the country. They account for only 17.5% of Chinese consumer purchases. And posted last September an increase of more than 27% over one year.

Claude Fouquet