By Casey Hall
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China's largest e-commerce company Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) Group said it recorded "robust growth" in sales and a "record number" of shoppers over this year's Singles' Day sales period, a weeks-long event that ended at midnight on Monday.
The firm did not release total sales revenue for the period but said 45 brands - including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Haier, Midea and Xiaomi (OTC:XIACF) - each surpassed 1 billion yuan ($138.62 million) in gross merchandising value (GMV), a commonly used measurement for online sales.
JD (NASDAQ:JD).com, China's second biggest e-commerce company, did not disclose information about sales but reported a more than 20% year-over-year increase in shoppers over the event.
Data provider Syntun estimated that sales across major e-commerce platforms rose 26.6% to 1.44 trillion yuan over the Singles Day event, which was 10 days longer than last year's.
Originally a 24-hour online shopping event held on Nov. 11 each year in China, the Singles' Day festival - a nod to the digits in the date - has expanded into weeks of promotions across the country's major e-commerce platforms and in brick-and-mortar stores. This year's festival, which kicked off on Oct. 14, is the longest edition yet.
Expectations for sales growth for the festival, which is viewed as a gauge of consumer confidence, were subdued this year as confidence in the world's second-largest economy remains low in the wake of a prolonged property crunch and macroeconomic slowdown.
Deep discounts have become a regular feature of online shopping in China since the COVID-19 pandemic as rising discount-focused platforms such as PDD Holdings' Pinduoduo (NASDAQ:PDD) and ByteDance's Douyin - the Chinese version of TikTok - grab market share.
Platforms such as Alibaba and JD.com subsidise additional discount coupons over Singles Day - for example, 50 yuan back for purchases of 300 yuan - which some analysts said contributed to higher rates of returns with consumers buying more to unlock additional discounts, only to immediately cancel parts of the order after purchase.
"We are at the peak of a consumption downgrade. People are so deep in a discount mindset and they feel the need to save every yuan they can," said Yaling Jiang, founder of research and strategy consultancy ApertureChina.
Major stimulus announcements from China's central government which boosted Chinese stock markets in the lead up to Singles Day were not a major factor in consumer spending for the period, according to Jacob Cooke, CEO of e-commerce consultancy WPIC Marketing + Technologies.
"It definitely didn't hurt," he said. "But was it a key contributor on this one? Probably not as much as we're going to be talking about at next year's 618 (mid-year sales festival)."
Major Chinese e-commerce platforms, which once unveiled their yearly Singles' Day results amid much fanfare at celebrity-fronted gala events, have been much more low key in recent years and have not released total GMV figures since 2022.
This year, larger ticket household appliances performed better than last year, benefiting from a national 150 billion yuan trade-in subsidy scheme announced in July to help boost consumption.
According to JD.com, fast-growing home and appliance categories included energy-efficient air conditioners, robot vacuum cleaners and smart toilets.
Another consumer sector seeing unexpected growth was collectible toys and hobbies, a category that includes anime, comic and gaming-related goods popular with young people in China.
According to figures from Alibaba, designer and collectible toy brands including MiHoYo, Pop Mart, Paperpresented and Jellycat surpassed 100 million yuan in GMV.
Shan Yin, a 23-year-old student from Hangzhou, bought gaming products related to titles including 'League of Legends' and collectibles from the 'Noragami' and 'Banana Fish' anime series totalling 3,200 yuan. These are products she says help her cope with the stress of her engineering studies.
"Cosplay and buying this merchandise are ways for me to regulate my emotions," she said.
($1 = 7.2352 Chinese yuan renminbi)