For years, Alibaba's (NYSE: BABA) multi-billion dollar shopping extravaganza known as Singles' Day was met with a star-studded gala holding performances from celebrities like Taylor Swift and Mariah Carey as the e-commerce giant moved billions of dollars of discounted merchandise.
This year, however, the online sales event was not met with much celebration and Alibaba has decided not to disclose the full sales results for the first-time in the event's 14-year history. Instead, the company issued a statement that gross merchandise value (GMV) was "in line with last year's GMV performance despite macro challenges and COVID-related impact."
Last year's 8.5% GMV growth for Alibaba's shopping platforms Taobao and Tmall was the coits lowever ever growth, following a 26% increase in 2020. Part of that increase could be attributed to the event lasting 11 days since 2020, instead of just one day.
Citi (NYSE: C) analysts forecasted this week for Singles' Day GMV to range from 545 billion yuan to 560 yuan ($75 billion to $77 billion), with growth up to 3.6%, Reuters reports.
During the shopping event, consumers were met with a 50 yuan discount for every 300 yuan spent on Tmall and a 30 yuan markdown for every 200 yuan spent on Taobao, Bloomberg reports.
Alibaba said its Tmall marketplace offered deals on more than 17 million products, up 3 million compared to last year, with 290,000 brands participating this year, matching 2021's record. While the company did not disclose which brands were performing well, it did note that sales of high-tech beauty devices surged about 5,570% from last year.
Once starting as an university joke on celebrating no having a significant partner, Singles' Day has become the world's largest shopping event, outpacing Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States in terms of both sales and annual growth.
However, the e-commerce giant has changed its tune surrounding the event this year, following Chinese President Xi Jinping's push for "common prosperity", or an initiative to cut back on excessive consumer spending in effort to eliminate growth wealth inequities,Reuters reports.
Alibaba has also been met with increasing competition from rivals like JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) and Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD) and government crackdowns on the private tech sector, including scrutiny of co-founder Jack Ma.