At the same time that Alibaba was reaking in a massive $25.35 billion on Singles’ Day on November 11, its top rival, JD.com brought in $19.14 billion from its sales. Alibaba’s sales may have experienced an enviable 40 percent increase over 2016, but JD.com went ahead and topped that with a 50 percent increase over last year.
Eleven Days at JD Versus One Day at Alibaba
One very important thing worth considering, though, is that Alibaba managed to bring in all its sales totals within a single day. On the other hand, JD.com’s sales transactions were a total from eleven days of transactions.
Singles’ Day is an incomparable day of frenzied shopping and entertainment that happens on November 11 every year in China. It is considered to be the largest shopping event in the world and includes over-the-top sales, entertainment, celebrity cameos and more. Its sales records are broken every year and its totals leave American Black Friday and Cyber Monday, combined, in the dust.
This year, JD.com began its event on November 1 in order to help ensure that shipping times wouldn’t be strangled from shoppers buying everything all on one day. This also gave shoppers more of a chance to make their purchasing decisions, said the company.
While JD’s top sales were of fresh foods and cosmetics, Alibaba reported that baby products such as formula powder, diapers and multivitamins were their top sellers.
Alibaba Makes Both Sales and Billionaires
That said, these sales aren’t the only thing the top retailers in China are making. China’s Alibaba has created several billionaires, as well. The most well known is Jack Ma, of course, the founder of the e-commerce giant, whose fortune is currently estimated to be $47.6 billion. That said, there are also at least 10 others whose fortunes have reached the billionaire level, with a combined fortune of nearly $100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Among the billionaires are Ou Yafei, from ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance – a shipping return insurance company selling coverage to customers at Alibaba’s online mall, Taobao. Another is Min Luo, of Qudian, a credit loan provider working in partnership with Alibaba’s online payments business, Ant Financial. Moreover, parcel delivery has generated another six billionaires, including Wang Wei of SF Express. Even beyond the ten billionaires at Alibaba, Ant Financial has created another twelve billionaires since 2015, according to Bloomberg’s data.
Even after all this, industry experts continue to predict only growth in Alibaba and JD.com’s futures. This is because of a trend known as a “consumption upgrade,” in which Chinese consumers are continually seeking to obtain better quality products than the ones they currently own. The goal is to always improve their living standards, which is becoming increasingly popular due to rising disposable incomes in the country. From 2013 through 2016, disposable incomes in China rose by 30 percent. There’s no reason to believe that 2017’s totals will disrupt that trend.