1 day of online shopping in China is bigger than 9 months in India

China’s Singles Day, every year on November 11 since 2009, became the world’s biggest shopping day in 2012 when it surpassed America’s annual shopfest. Photo credit: estherpoon / 123RF.

China’s biggest shopping day, dubbed Singles Day, just wrapped up yesterday. The sum of money spent – a grand total of US$17.7 billion in just 24 hours on Alibaba’s marketplaces – is so vast that it’s hard to put into perspective. So here are some ways to frame it:

• China’s Singles Day was bigger than nine months of ecommerce in India – that’s because India is set to see US$23.4 billion in online shopping during the course of 2016.

• This year’s Singles Day, which comes round every November 11, was three times bigger than America’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined in 2015.

• The day accounted for 2 percent of China’s total online shopping expenditure this year – an anticipated US$911 billion, rising to beyond a trillion bucks in 2017.

• All the money spent was just short of Afghanistan’s estimated GDP this year – and precisely twice that of the Republic of Congo.

Little wonder that Alibaba founder Jack Ma is China’s richest tech boss.

Screengrab of Jack Ma at World Economic Forum.