Alibaba’s led Singles’ Day sales surpass last year’s 14.3 billion in half the time

Chinese giant e-commerce group Alibaba Group reported earlier on Friday that its Singles’ Day shopping was being quite a success as, after passing the half way mark in the 24-hour event, sales were already nearing last year’s record breaking total of 14.3 billion dollars.

By 1.15pm, total spending on Alibaba platforms, which include Tmall, Taobao and AliExpress, was at 12.5 billion dollars, reported the ‘South China Morning Post’. The company has set its goal for this year at 18.5 billion dollars, that’s 29 percent more than last year.

Sales officially opened at midnight, releasing a wave of pre-orders that shoppers had placed ahead of the event and propelling the first billion dollars of transactions in just under 5 minutes, Alibaba said on its official microblog.

The 24-hour event held annually on November, 11 is considered a benchmark for China’s ongoing swing towards online shopping, highlighted the Chinese journal.