Alibaba with record Singles Day, but shares drop with new rules

This year’s Singles Day raked in a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of 498.2 billion yuan (€63.67bn-$75.19bn) for Alibaba up sharply from the RMB 268.4 billion reported a year ago. The rival Chinese e-tailer Jd.com had sales of about ¥271.5 billion (€34.71bn-$40.99bn). Lasting 11 days this year, Alibaba’s Chinese sales festival generated about 21 times the order value of Amazon’s Prime Day, which took place over two days in October. Alibaba’s vice president, Liu Bo, ascribed the sale’s success in part to China’s travel restrictions, which he believes spurred consumption. The company nevertheless took a substantial hit on Nov. 11, its share price on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange closing down 9.8 percent after China published draft anti-trust legislation directed at e-commerce platforms. It had suffered a similar drop only a week before, when China suspended the listing of Alibaba’s fintech affiliate, Ant Group. Projections had valued the IPO at about $37 billion.