Alibaba's Gross Merchandise Volume Grows to USD 94.3 Billion Ahead of Singles' Day

Chinese retail behemoth Alibaba might have another record shattering Singles’ Day on its hands. Earlier this fall a Business Insider article about Singles’ Day – the biggest online shopping day in China, for which Alibaba plays host – noted that the mobile portion of the company’s gross merchandise volume (GMV) leapt from 68 percent to 75 percent, adding: “The growing prevalence of mobile could be a boon to Singles' Day results.”

What’s more, the e-commerce giant’s GMV grew by 69 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2016, to a staggering total of USD 94.3 billion. “Mobile GMV has been driven in part by increasing conversion rates,” the article went on to say, before adding that that means “Alibaba could see higher sales on Singles' Day than last year because of higher conversion rates on mobile devices.” The amount of time that customers spend on their phones, as compared to their desktops, could also lead them to make a greater number of purchases. All of this bodes well for the shopping occasion, known in Mandarin as 光棍节 (Guānggùn Jié), which saw a record breaking USD 14.3 billion in sales in 2015, making its November 11 date (i.e. 11/11, an ode to the supposed loneliness of the number one for single people) anything but a melancholy occasion.

Much of those money making efforts might be coordinated from Beijing, rather than Alibaba’s headquarters in Hangzhou. In 2015 a Fortune magazine article said “our 11/11 command center will be in … China’s capital because it commands great influence not only across China but also on the global stage.”

This article originally appeared in the Nov/Dec 2016 issue of the Beijinger, which you can read here via Issuu, via the PDF here, or in hard copy at all of your favorite venues across town.