China’s 618 shopping festival: Alibaba touts early sales after withholding data last year, a sign of brighter outlook
- Apple sold more than 1.5 billion yuan worth of products on Taobao and Tmall in the first hour of sales, according to Alibaba
- After a relatively quiet 618 event last year, major e-commerce players are pulling out all the stops to attract shoppers
Alibaba Group Holding and other e-commerce operators have released encouraging early sales data from their midyear 618 promotions – China’s biggest shopping season after Singles’ Day, and a bellwether of consumer sentiment in the world’s second-largest economy.
Four hours after Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall shopping platforms launched their sales event at 8pm on Monday, 59 brands each saw their gross merchandise value (GMV) – the value of goods sold – surpass 100 million yuan (US$13.8 million), while 376 products saw GMV exceed 10 million yuan, Alibaba’s domestic e-commerce unit said on Tuesday.
Around 370,000 small businesses more than doubled their GMV on the first day of sales from last year, the platforms said. Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.
