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Watch out Black Friday: Singles’ Day in China is off to a tsunami of sales, recording billions in business just after the event began on Sunday morning, China time, and then topping tens of billions 10 hours later.
The e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (BABA) announced on Twitter by 8 in the morning China time that the self-loving holiday had “continued to roll fast and furiously overnight,” and before 10:30 a.m. China time, the company claimed it hit $20 billion in gross sales.
Often compared to Cyber Monday and Black Friday in the U.S., the young, unofficial commercial holiday in China was started in 2009, so singles could learn they really can find happiness by buying stuff — at least for a day.
Over the years, the event has come to eclipse our Black Friday in terms of sales. Last year, Alibaba’s Singles’ Day recorded more than $25 billion in sales — several times the amount spent in our post-Thanksgiving day shopping spree.
But then again, China has a lot of people yet to hook up among its population of about 1.4 billion people.
In case you were wondering, the Nov. 11 holiday, written in either Arabic numerals or Chinese characters, appears like a bunch of singles: 11/11.
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