China's Singles Day Is Already Bigger Than Black Friday, Now It's Going Global

Update at 11:20 a.m. ET: Alibaba's Singles Day sales in total reached $14.3 billion in GMV, a 53.7% jump from last year's event, beating analysts' expectation of 40% growth rate. But its stock is down 2.8% on Wednesday morning trading in New York.

Update at 10 a.m. ET: Two hours before the ending of Singles Day, total GMV on Alibaba's platforms  is edging towards a new high of $13 billion, representing 40% growth from last year that is in line with analysts' expectation. 

Last year China’s Singles Day surpassed Black Friday to become the world’s largest shopping day. The 24-hour shopping bonanza, which was started by Alibaba’s TMall platform in 2009 and became popular among youngsters in China, has grown into the biggest annual battle for e-commerce companies in China.

In its latest effort to step up against rival JD.com , this year Alibaba Group moved its count-down program from its headquarters Hangzhou to the country’s capital Beijing. The e-commerce giant hosted a four-hour TV show on Singles Day’s Eve featuring not just top Chinese pop singers and movie stars, but also James Bond’s Daniel Craig and a cameo from Kevin Spacey, who greeted Chinese consumers as “President Underwood” from the blockbuster TV series House of Cards.

Those efforts appear to have paid off. In the first hour and a half, Alibaba’s total gross merchandise volume (GMV) exceeded $5 billion, while last year it took the company about 13 hours to achieve such volume. Deutsche Bank analyst Alan Hellawell III expects Alibaba’s GMV for the day could hit $13 billion, or 40% growth from last year on November 11, largely thanks to heavier emphasis on cross-border commerce and the increasing amount of big ticket items.

(Read more about the 2014 Singles Day here)

One key priority for Chinese e-commerce giants this year is bringing international brands to Chinese consumers. Alibaba Group claims that its platforms attract more than 40,000 merchants (up from 27,000 last year) and 30,000 brands (such as Macy’s, Apple , and Estee Lauder) from 25 countries. JD.com declined to comment on the numbers of brands, but Tony Qiu, director of JD Worldwide, told FORBES that he “expects a lot of traction” from their cross-border service. “We’re seeing great demand from Chinese customers for global products,” he says, noting that the company’s recently-launched cross-border unit has seen more growth than any other business units. Not surprisingly, according to Qiu, Chinese customers are quite fond of products from United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

In addition to global e-commerce, mobile is another front for the big tech companies to compete. JD.com is leveraging its relationship with investor Tencent, which owns the ubiquitous Chinese mobile messaging app Weixin (WeChat in English). Thanks to its exclusive partnership with Tencent, JD.com is putting out advertisements for its selected partners on WeChat during Singles Day for the first time. The company is also offering RMB 2.5 billion (US$394 million) worth of coupons on WeChat’s Moments’ platform, according to Deustche Bank’s report. Meanwhile, Alibaba says that mobile transaction represented 72% of total gross merchandise volumes (GMV) in the first hour and a half, compared to 42% of mobile transaction last year.

But Alibaba and JD.com aren’t the only benefactors of Chinese consumers’ shopping craze. For instance, electronic maker and online video company LeTV, run by billionaire Jia Yueting, is taking advantage of both platforms to sell its products. Within the first hour of Singles Day sales, LeTV sold RMB 150 million ($24 million) in GMV on Tmall and JD.com respectively. Other major e-commerce platforms in China, such as VIPShop, Amazon.cn, and Jumei have also been offering promotions around Singles Day (see charts below from Deutsche Bank).

It's still too early to know who will be the biggest winner on November 11. But as Deutsche Bank's Hellawell point out, the weakness in Chinese consumption has done little to slow the growth of the country's e-commerce sector.