In 5 minutes of online sale, Alibaba rakes in $3 billion

SHANGHAI: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba generated $3 billion in five minutes of its annual 24-hour online shopping sale during its ‘Singles’ Day’ sales blitz on Sunday with Apple, Xiomi featuring among the top brands.

The 24-hour event held annually on November 11 recorded the purchases of products worth $10 billion in the period of little over an hour.

“Back in 2013, CNY 35 billion ($5.15 billion or roughly Rs. 34,523 crores) was our one-day GMV (gross merchandise volume),” said Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang in a live micro-blog posting on Alibaba’s event. “Now we can achieve it in one hour,” Reuters reported.

Last year, Alibaba recorded $25 billion in the sales of 24 hours.

Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma was present at the gala night for countdown to the Global Shopping Festival 11.11 in Shanghai.

Los Angeles, Tokyo and Frankfurt were among the global cities that saw orders being placed for goods ranging from diapers to mobiles.