Alibaba kicks off Singles’ Day direct sales, with Apple and Lululemon seeing strong demand

E-commerce powerhouse Alibaba Group Holding on Monday kicked off direct sales for its annual Singles’ Day campaign that saw strong demand for products from major brands such as Apple and Lululemon Athletica, indicating a recovery of consumer spending in the world’s second-largest economy.

Taobao and Tmall Group (TTG), Alibaba’s domestic e-commerce business unit, started direct sales at 8pm on Monday and within the first five minutes recorded more than 1 billion yuan (US$140 million) worth of Apple purchases, on the back of deep iPhone 16 discounts, according to data provided by the group. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Twelve top sports brands – including Lululemon, Nike, Adidas and The North Face – available on the Taobao and Tmall shopping platforms each posted more than 100 million yuan in purchases in the first hour of sales, according to TTG. Within four hours, TTG said more than 12,000 brands doubled their sales compared with the same sales period last year.

Apart from Apple, 11 other leading consumer electronics brands – including Android smartphone giants Huawei Technologies, Xiaomi and Vivo – achieved 100 million yuan each in direct sales as of midnight on Monday. A total of 42 brands in that category doubled their sales compared to the same period last year, according to TTG.

Meanwhile, Alibaba-owned online travel-booking platform Fliggy reported that overall turnover for the initial 52 minutes of direct sales on Monday had exceeded its first 24 hours of sales last year. Shanghai Disney Resort was among the best-performing destinations, with more than 50 million yuan in turnover, as consumers rushed to book discounted tickets, according to data from Fliggy.