Alibaba takes in $84.54 billion in orders in toned-down Singles Day

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd recorded 540.3 billion yuan ($84.54) billion in orders, or “gross merchandise value” (GMV), over its 11-day Singles’ Day sales event, marking a roughly 14% increase from the year prior.

The results come as overall consumption in China slows, and cap a relatively muted version of a sales festival that Alibaba once aggressively promoted.

Before the sales period began, analysts had said they expected Alibaba to report only a minor increase in GMV this year, citing slowing retail sales, supply shortages, power disruptions and COVID-19 lockdowns.

Alibaba turned China’s informal Singles’ Day into a shopping event in 2009 and built it into the world’s biggest online sales fest, dwarfing Cyber Monday in the United States.