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Singles' Day could break records again (BABA)
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BIIAnt Financial, the Alibaba-affiliated owner of payment platform Alipay, expects that this year's Singles' Day — China's biggest online shopping day of the year hosted by Alibaba — will break records and generate even more sales than in 2015, according to Bloomberg.
Singles’ Day reached insane heights last year. The service saw $14.3 billion in sales on Alibaba alone in 2015, much of which flowed through Alipay.
Since then, Alipay has continued to grow. Alipay currently counts 450 million monthly active users. As mobile payment usage in China rises, it’s likely that Alipay’s user base is increasing as well. This provides Ant with a larger audience to target on Singles’ Day.
The growing prevalence of mobile could be a boon to Singles' Day results. Seventy-five percent of Alibaba's gross merchandise volume (GMV) now derives from mobile, up from 68% in Q4 2015, when last year's Singles' Day occurred. And the retail giant's mobile GMV stood at $94.3 billion in Q2 2016, up 69% year-over-year (YoY). Mobile GMV has been driven in part by increasing conversion rates. Therefore, Alibaba could see higher sales on Singles' Day than last year because of higher conversion rates on mobile devices. In addition, mobile arguably has greater potential to drive repeat purchases within a single day compared to desktop, given that users are rather tethered to their phones.
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