Alibaba share price up, breaks online shopping records with Singles’ Day promotion

Alibaba reported record sales during the first hours of its November 11th Singles Day promotion, turning it into the biggest online shopping discount event. The figures until lunchtime suggested the event will even beat the online sales generated in the U.S. holiday shopping spree between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday in 2013.

Alibaba shared that more than 36.2 billion yuan ($5.9 billion) of merchandise was sold within 14 hours after the promotions beginning.

The companys Chief Financial Officer Mr. Daniel Zhang said in a statement, which was cited by the Financial Times: “This is the first year we want to change Singles Day from a China consumers’ day to a global consumers’ day.” Mr. Zhang also added that “numbers could be quite small because we are in the beginning stage”.

Now Alibaba has set a target of making the success of the Singles Day globally even bigger by adding popular brands such as Calvin Klein and Blue Nile Inc.

Alibaba, which less than a couple of months ago carried out the largest Initial Public Offering in history, is trying to become more attractive to merchants and customers. That is why it is using 27 000 labels, and will offer large discounts not only on Tmall, but also on the rest of its websites.

According to Alibabas Chief Financial Officer, the large scale of the shopping day is a good example of the flexibility of the business model, which the company has chosen.

The managing director of OgilvyOne Shanghai – Allen Xu commented on the companys announcement for Bloomberg: “November 11 is a key milestone for Alibaba. The company used the festival to build its dominance as an e-commerce player linking businesses to consumers in China. With the IPO of Alibaba, the company has the ambition to make this brand go global.”

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd rose by 4.01% on Monday in New York to close at $119.15 per share. The company is valued at $296.17 billion. According to CNN Money, the 34 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd have a median target of $120.00, with a high estimate of $135.00 and a low estimate of $75.00. The median estimate represents a +0.71% increase from the last price of $119.15.