Alibaba beats Singles Day sales record, breaks $5b in first hour

Update: After two hours, the total is up to US$7.16 billion. Jack Ma looks pretty happy about it:

Original story follows:

Alibaba’s 2016 Singles Day is off to a great start. The company broke RMB 10 billion (US$1.4 billion) in less than seven minutes, and had broached US$5 billion before the first hour was up. As was the case last year, a big majority of the day’s sales – 84.3 percent so far – are coming from mobile devices.

Last year, Alibaba broke US$5 billion within the first 90 minutes of Singles Day. It went on to a total of US$14.3 billion in sales that year. This year’s pace – it’s about US$1 billion ahead of where it was last year after one hour – suggests that Alibaba will finish well above that mark, but could fall short of the US$20 billion target that some had set for the day.

Alibaba counts its sales figures using gross merchandise volume, meaning that these figures represent the total value of goods sold so far during the sale. It’s also worth noting that these early figures also include preorders customers made at promotional events earlier in the year to lock in Singles Day deals. Alibaba says the number of preorders was particularly large this year, “so much so that some Alibaba officials were talking about how the 24-hour sale had become a 24-day affair.”

The company led into today’s sale with a star-studded promotional gala that it called “a cross between a 1960s variety show and home shopping network.” Katy Perry, who had been set to appear, canceled at the last minute, but Western luminaries including David Beckham and Kobe Bryant were on hand, and high-profile musical acts including One Republic and G.E.M. performed.

Alibaba rival JD, which also offers massive discounts on Singles Day, led into its sales with a livestreamed gala as well. It hasn’t yet shared any sales figures today.