By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) stock (HK:9988) closed 0.5% lower in Hong Kong trading Friday while smaller rival JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) ended the session 5.2% higher, responding to their respective performance with their annual Single’s Day online sales fest.
For Alibaba, which first started the practice as a single-day event in 2009, sales grew at their slowest pace ever. China’s largest ecommerce platform, which converted the event into an 11-day affair last year, said gross merchandise volume grew 8.5% to 540.3 billion yuan ($84.5 billion), the first time in history that growth has slowed below 10%.
GMV is the most commonly used barometer to determine the size and health of an ecommerce site and signifies the total value of products and services sold on the platform.
The event also provides the likes of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and L’Oreal (PA:OREP) with a ready outlet to push their sales.
Sales were much better at JD.com which recorded 349.1 billion yuan worth of transactions, up around 29% from the previous year. It also benefited from giving more time to consumers on the opening day without making them put an all-nighter.
Alibaba was under pressure this time given the scrutiny it has been under from Chinese antitrust and Internet authorities. The company consequently went slow on promoting the event. Other reasons behind the muted sales could have been costlier products, consumer fatigue and the fest losing its appeal.
Still, Alibaba managed to pull in a record 290,000 brands and 900 million consumers on to its platform during the fest. It said 78 businesses saw their GMV grow more than 10 times compared with last year to more than 100 million yuan.