The e-commerce giant’s focus on enhancing customer experience and strategic investments has resulted in notable year-over-year growth, despite challenging market conditions.

Strategic Initiatives and Business Review

Alibaba’s strategic initiatives have significantly impacted key sectors, including e-commerce, cloud computing, digital media, and logistics. The company’s focus on improving user experience, technological advancements, and expanding international commerce has paid off.

• E-commerce: Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall Group saw a 4% year-over-year revenue growth, reaching RMB 93.2 billion, driven by a 5% increase in customer management revenue. The group also reported double-digit growth in online GMV and orders.
• Cloud Computing: The Cloud Intelligence Group reported a 3% revenue increase, reaching RMB 25.6 billion, with a notable 45% rise in adjusted EBITA. This growth was driven by higher adoption of public cloud services and AI products.
• International Commerce: The Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group experienced a 45% revenue increase to RMB 27.4 billion, thanks to strong performance in cross-border e-commerce, particularly from AliExpress.
• Logistics: Cainiao Smart Logistics Network’s revenue surged by 30% to RMB 24.6 billion, primarily due to increased demand for cross-border fulfillment services.
• Local Services Group: Reported a 19% revenue increase to RMB 14.6 billion, driven by Ele.me and Amap’s strong order growth.
• Digital Media and Entertainment Group: Revenue slightly decreased by 1% to RMB 4.9 billion, despite growth in Alibaba Pictures and Damai.

Financial Highlights

Alibaba’s financial results for the March quarter demonstrated resilience and strategic growth:

• Revenue: The company reported a 7% year-over-year increase in revenue, totaling RMB 221.9 billion (US$30.7 billion).
• Income from Operations: Despite a 3% decline, income from operations stood at RMB 14.8 billion (US$2.0 billion).
• Net Income: Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders decreased by 96% to RMB 919 million (US$127 million), mainly due to investment losses.
• Adjusted EBITA: Non-GAAP adjusted EBITA decreased by 5% to RMB 24.4 billion (US$3.3 billion).
• Share Repurchases and Dividends: Alibaba repurchased US$12.5 billion worth of shares in fiscal 2024 and announced a US$4.0 billion dividend.

Alibaba’s Q1 2024 results highlight the success of its strategic initiatives and investments in enhancing customer experience and technological infrastructure. The company’s focus on e-commerce, cloud computing, and international expansion positions it well for future growth. As Alibaba continues to innovate and adapt, it remains committed to delivering value to shareholders and capturing new market opportunities.

Consumer Behavior: A Rational Return

Gone are the days of impulsive “buy, buy, buy” mantras.

Today’s consumers are more discerning, seeking value for money, and brand credibility over the lure of influencers and livestream promotions. The impact of livestreams has waned, with only 22% of consumers citing it as a key purchasing factor, a decline from 32% in 2021.

Market Trends: The Price Wars

E-commerce platforms are intensifying their competition on pricing, with aggressive strategies like price matching and guarantees of the lowest prices on the web. This year’s theme for JD.com’s Double 11 is “Real Cheap,” reflecting a market shift back to core retail principles: value for money.

The Rise of Domestic Brands

Chinese local brands are set to be the biggest winners of Double 11 this year.

A significant 66% of consumers plan to increase their spending on domestic brands, turning away from international products.

This trend is driven by a deepened trust in the quality and safety of local brands, with young consumers actively seeking local alternatives to overseas brands, especially in apparel and accessories.

The Silver Economy

With over 280 million people aged 60 and above, China hosts the world’s largest “silver” consumer group, many of whom are proficient in using the internet and smart devices.

They represent a vital yet understated market segment, with a buying motivation split between seeking discounts and enhancing the quality of later life. The influence of family and friends plays a significant role in their purchasing decisions, indicating that reputation and word of mouth are paramount within this demographic.

For Double 11 in 2023, expect the following:

• A market driven by rational consumer choices, with less emphasis on influencer marketing and more on product quality and brand reputation.
• A surge in domestic brand loyalty, as consumers prioritize local products over international offerings.
• An emphasis on pricing strategies, with platforms offering various subsidies, price guarantees, and direct discounts to capture market share.
• A need for tailored marketing strategies to cater to the growing silver economy, which seeks quality, usability, and trustworthy recommendations.

The Double 11 Shopping Festival of 2023 is shaping up to be a battleground for price and value, a showcase for national brands, and a testament to the discerning power of the silver economy. As consumer behavior becomes more rational, e-commerce platforms and brands must adapt to these evolving trends to captivate the Chinese market.

Overall Performance

The 2023 Double 11 event showcased a total online retail sales volume of 515.56 billion yuan during the peak sale period (October 31st to November 3rd), marking a 9.5% year-on-year increase. This growth signifies robust overall performance amidst an evolving e-commerce landscape​​.

According to data from Xingtu, the total GMV on comprehensive e-commerce platforms totaled 277.7 billion yuan from 8pm 10 November till the end of 11 November. 60% from Tmall, JD.com about 28%, Pinduoduo 7%. Cross-border import e-commerce accounted for 34.1 billion yuan.

Strategic Shifts and Platform Performances

A noticeable shift this year was the focus on low pricing strategies across platforms. Major e-commerce giants like JD.com, Tmall-Taobao, Douyin, Kuaishou, and Pinduoduo emphasized offering the lowest prices, with individual approaches to discounts and subsidies​​.

The sales distribution among platforms was quite varied. Tmall led with a 35.4% share, followed by JD.com (21.6%), Douyin (9.6%), Taobao (8.6%), and Pinduoduo (6.7%). The combined Tmall and Taobao, forming the Taobao-Tmall group, dominated with a 44% sales share​​.

Douyin’s rise to the third position highlights the increasing acceptance of its e-commerce model, which integrates interest-based shopping, short video content, and live-streaming​​.

Consumer Trends

The 2023 festival saw more diversified and personalized consumption. There was a notable acceleration in high-quality, experiential, and interest-driven consumption. Products catering to unique hobbies like rock climbing, surfing, and camping gained popularity, along with smart products like open-ear headphones and electric adjustable desks​​.

Health management and beauty products also saw a surge in demand. The trend towards “home-based healthcare” led to increased sales of oxygen concentrators, blood oxygen monitors, hearing aids, and electric wheelchairs. The anti-aging segment, particularly home beauty devices, witnessed explosive growth​​.

Individual Platform Highlights

JD.com: Achieved record-breaking sales, orders, and user numbers. Over 60 brands surpassed 1 billion yuan in sales, and nearly 20,000 brands saw a more than threefold increase in transaction volume compared to last year. The platform also reported significant growth in live broadcasting viewership, with a total of over 380 million views​​​​.

Tmall: Reported 402 brands exceeding 1 billion yuan in sales, with national brands making up a significant portion. The platform witnessed a historic peak in user visits and continued to expand its market share, especially in lower-tier markets​​​​.

Douyin: Experienced significant growth in GMV, with daily GMV of certain products exceeding one million yuan. The platform’s “official discount” strategy played a key role in this success, highlighting social commerce’s and live streaming’s power in driving sales​​​​.

These insights reflect the robust nature of China’s e-commerce ecosystem and underscore the changing consumer preferences and strategic shifts among the leading online shopping platforms. The Double 11 festival continues to evolve, setting new trends and benchmarks in the global e-commerce landscape.

Among them, the top 3 in sales are Apple, Haier, and Midea. Apple’s sales have even exceeded 5 billion yuan, opening a large gap with other brands.

JD reported over 10% growth in this year’s total 618 GMV while Alibaba and Pinduoduo didn’t disclose too much data on this year’s 618 sales.

CIW annual subscribers can download Top 10 Best-selling Brands in Tmall/Taobao 618 2022 here.

Alibaba Tmall 618 2022

In the May presale period, Tmall merchants will receive roughly RMB10 billion ($1.5 billion) in deposits made by consumers to secure their orders. Once shipping starts between June 1 and June 30, the remaining balance of up to RMB100 billion will be sent to businesses.

For cross-border merchants, international B2C marketplace Tmall Global is freeing up to RMB4 billion to their payment accounts as soon as parcels leave warehouses between June 1 and June 30.

Presale

Tmall 618 2022 pre-sale officially opened at 8 p.m. on May 26. The first wave of rush buying started at 8 p.m. on May 31 and the second wave starts at 8 p.m. on June 15.

This year, Taobao increased the pre-sale time during the 618 event, making the official pre-sale an increment for businesses to make a good start. The platform will provide the official pre-sale atmosphere, the official pre-sale venue, and search for recommended resources.

On June 18 this year, Taobao simplified the preferential rules and marketing complexity. The discount for cross store full sales was reduced by 20 yuan or 50 for every 199 or 1000 yuan spend.

Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall are not the only e-commerce platforms for 618 shopping festival promotions. Many retailers and major online platforms, such as JD, Pinduoduo, Kuaishou, etc., have promotions to push up their sales.

Tmall 618 Sale

Alibaba didn’t share much this year’s 618 shopping festival sales data.

Among the 35 categories counted in a third-party research company Nint’s report, there were 6 brands with sales exceeding 1 billion yuan in a single category sales; and, 108 brands had sales exceeding 1 billion yuan each.

Among them, Apple, Midea, Haier, Xiaomi, and L’Oreal ranked among the top 5 in overall sales. With sales of 15 billion, Apple is the only brand with sales of more than 10 billion yuan (US$2.23 billion), and has become the biggest winner.

JD 618 2022

Instead of getting different coupons, Jingdong 618 platform offers an immediate RMB 50 yuan discount for every qualified RMB 299-yuan purchase, making the shopping process even simpler this time.

Presales

During the pre-order phase of this year’s 618 Grand Promotion from 8 p.m. on May 23 to midnight on the 29, sales of a number of top brands exceeded RMB 100 million yuan, such as Xiaomi, Haier, Lenovo, Huawei, Midea and more.

The official 618 Grand Promotion sales phase started at 8 p.m. on May 31 and lasts until June 20, during which JD’s customers can purchase their pre-ordered products to enjoy discounts and worry-free shopping services including same or next-day delivery service.

JD’s data during the past six days revealed that the “post-95” generation showed rising spending power with pre-order sales up 75 percent YoY. Meanwhile, the product variety offered on JD.com during this year’s shopping festival increased by 20 percent and a robust demand is seen from China’s sixth-tier cities with over 100 percent growth YoY.

Sales of the home appliances category as a whole rose by 200 percent YoY, while order volume of new products tripled. Sales of tablets, home use printers, and mechanical keyboards increased 100, 170, and 400 percent respectively.

In the healthcare category, the overall order volume on JD Health grew by 186 percent YoY.

The number of products joining the pre-order period increased by 219 percent. Deposits for body fat measurers increased 576 percent YoY, and that of Bio Island’s DHA for kids grew 10 times, becoming the biggest “dark horse” during JD Health’s pre-order period.

More and more customers are getting used to online ordering for offline services.

Orders of automobile products with installation services on JD.com increased 240 percent YoY, among which tire-changing service orders is up by 135 percent; furniture with installation service orders increased 127 percent, and travel orders are up by 110 percent on JD.com.

JD’s latest omni-channel store, the J Shop, attracted 50 percent more merchants to participate in this year’s shopping festival, who together brought double the amount of products in the fashion and lifestyle categories.

During the pre-order phase, the J Shop channel presented over a hundred best-sellers from an array of big brands from home and abroad, such as SK-II gift boxes, Arman Men’s T-shirts, and Lancôme’s anti-aging serum, just to name a few.

More than 20 brands under JD Luxury reached over 100 percent sales growth month over month, including Tory Burch, MCM, Chopard, and more. BVLGARI’s daily sales on JD Luxury during the past six days quadrupled its average amount. The top 3 Swiss watches are from Longines, Tissot, and MIDO, with Longines’ sales increasing by 160 percent YoY.

618 Sales

The 19th JD 618 Grand Promotion officially kicked off at 8 p.m. on May 31 after an eight-day pre-order phase.

In the first 10 minutes of the mid-year shopping festival, the sales of a number of brands exceeded RMB 100 million yuan, including Xiaomi, Midea, Haier, Lenovo, Apple, HONOR, Huawei, SONY, Asus, Siemens and more.

Smartphones, air conditioners, Chinese sticky rice dumplings for Dragon Boat Festival (which falls on June 3 this year), baby formula, and toys were the hottest search keywords in those first 10 minutes, according to JD’s data.

Over a hundred home brands on JD.com reached double sales growth in the first 10 minutes.

Electronics products such as tablets, home use printers and projectors, ready-to-cook products, kitchenware, and home workout products such as smart mirrors and massage guns, are among the popular categories during this shopping festival.

JD Worldwide offers cross-border imports to Chinese customers. Nearly 150 overseas brands saw more than 200 percent sales growth in the first 10 minutes. Sales of nearly 100 sub-categories exceeded 100 percent growth YoY. The top 3 brands in sales are Nintendo, Swarovski and a2 milk powder.

As of 23:59 on June 18th Beijing time, JD.com reported a total transaction volume of RMB 379.3 billion yuan (US$56.7 billion) for JD 618 Grand Promotion 2022, which exceeded last year’s RMB 343.8 billion yuan.

In JD 618 this year, 26 stores exceeded 1 billion yuan sales orders, the number of new product sales increased by more than 20% year-on-year, and the turnover of more than 30 trending categories increased by more than 10 times year-on-year.

TikTok 618

During 618 last year, Douyin (Tiktok in China) e-commerce saw a total of 28.52 million hours of live streaming. This year, it reached 40.45 million hours from June 1 to June 18, an increase of more than 40% over the same period last year.

Short videos embedded with shopping carts were played 115.1 billion times.

The “search” function made an amazing contribution during this 618 event. Douyin mall led to a year-on-year sales increase of 514%, search scene led to a year-on-year increase of 293%, and the number of merchants participating in the activity increased by 159%.

Alibaba Tmall Double 11 Shopping Festival

Alibaba Group kicked off its Tmall Double 11 Shopping Festival 2021 on 20 October 2021. This is Alibaba’s 13th annual Double Eleven shopping festival in China with an emphasis on sustainability and inclusiveness.

This year marks the largest Double 11 Festival to date, with a record 290,000 brands participating. Alibaba Tmall is offering more than 14 million deals to over 900 million consumers in China. Double 11 2021 will once again have two sales windows – the first will be from November 1 to 3, and the second will be on November 11, on the day of the main event.

Livestreaming will be a key consumer engagement mechanism for brands and merchants to build awareness and drive sales. Starting on October 20 throughout the Festival, Taobao Live will feature 700 leading KOLs, celebrities and brand representatives in livestream sessions.

In addition, Taobao will roll out a new feature for users to share their “shopping cart” items with friends and family, creating a more social shopping experience.

Taobao app introduced an option for “senior mode“, a new feature designed to make the user interface more accessible for senior citizens.

It offers voice-assisted technology, simplified navigation, larger font size and icons. The app homepage also offers games for elderly users to unlock special discounts for groceries, making the experience more engaging for the silver generation.

Consumers are encouraged to share their “Goods for Good” purchases with their friends and family, and Alibaba will make a RMB1 donation for every successful social media share.

Launched in 2006, Alibaba’s “Goods for Good” program enables merchants to donate a portion of their sales to charitable organizations of their choice, while consumers can support their favorite charitable causes through their purchases.

The donations from this year’s Double 11 Festival will provide support to three major beneficiary groups: elderly citizens living in solitude, “left-behind children” in remote areas and low-income workers.

Tmall Double 11 Pre-sale

At 8 p.m. on October 20, Tmall Double 11 officially opened the pre-sale. This year, Tmall’s Double 11 will collectively discount 14 million products, of which all the popular products in 1000 brand flagship stores will be subsidized to 50%.

According to Taobao live streaming data, Li Jiaqi, one of the top anchors, listed 439 products on the evening of October 20. The cumulative transaction value of the live broadcast room is as high as 11.5 billion yuan, and the estimated sales volume is 37.71 million.

In addition, the maximum sales volume of a single product was 1.8777 million yuan, the maximum sales value of a single product was 389 million yuan, the average customer purchase was 306 yuan, and 2.83 million new followers.

Another top influencer Viya started live streaming at 12:55 on October 20, with a cumulative live streaming duration of 14 hours and 28 minutes. The total sales reached 8.533 billion yuan and the average customer purchase was 317 yuan.

There are 499 products listed and the estimated cumulative sales volume is 26.89 million. The maximum sales volume of a single product is 605,600, and the maximum sales value of a single product is 490 million yuan.

Alibaba Tmall Double 11 Sales/GMV

In 2021, Alibaba’s Tmall Double 11 shopping festival achieved a new record of US$84.54 billion in gross merchandise volume.

More than 2.5 million consumers purchased green products on Tmall. Tesla, for example, sold more charging stations for its electric cars within the first minute on November 11 than it had during the entire festival last year.

JD Double 11

Presales

On October 20, the 2021 JD”s Double 11, Singles Day Grand Promotion, began with the pre-sale rolling in at 8 pm. The number of customers who placed orders within the first four hours increased by nearly 40% compared with the first day of the pre-sale in 2020.

The first order delivered by JD’s on-demand “Shop Now” service was swiftly fulfilled within only 10 minutes.

According to JD, an increasing amount of young people joined the pre-sale as consumers aged 18-35 accounted for over 70% during the pre-sale period. Since many brands also opened pre-sales at 8 pm, they swiftly shattered the pre-sale record set on the first entire day of the pre-sale last year.

This shopping enthusiasm was fully ignited across China. Within the first four hours of the pre-sale, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Beijing took the top 3 in order amounts; and when it comes to the product category, large appliances took the lead, followed by phones, sports shoes and bags, and facial care products.

Haier ranked the most popular brand out of all the large appliances during the pre-sale period, and Siemens came after.

On computers and digital products, hardware devices for education purposes came out strong.

Xiaomi, Huawei, and OPPO were also among some of the highly popular tech products, as the pre-sale order volume for Xiaomi phones in the very first hour exceeded that of the first entire day last year.

Within the first four hours of the pre-sale, order amounts of OPPO phones this year increased by 227% YoY.

This Singles Day, JD provided e-CNY (CBDC) red envelopes for users in 11 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Dalian, Xi’an, Chengdu, and more, in collaboration with China Construction Bank (CCB).

Users located in these cities, who have never opened an e-CNY account, can search “e-CNY” on JD’s app to get access to the activity page. The red envelopes can be used on JD’s e-commerce app to purchase first-party products.

JD Double 11 Sales

JD.com reported a record-breaking Singles Day Grand Promotion on November 12, 2021, with transaction volume totaling RMB 349.1 billion yuan at midnight of November 11, ending the 11-day promotion that started from 8 pm on October 31.

The transaction volume of 31 brands surpassed RMB 1 billion yuan with Apple surpassing RMB 10 billion yuan.

Users from lower-tier markets account for 77% of all users for JD’s Singles Day Grand Promotion this year. JD has seen rapid growth of consumption from these markets in the categories of home appliances, medicine, and home decoration.

For example, the transaction volume of dishwashers and sweeping robots increased 2 to 3 times, with some smart home appliances even increasing 5 to 10 times.

Over 100,000 customers used e-CNY on JD’s app during the promotion period.

Xiaomi

During November’s Singles’ Day Shopping Festival, Xiaomi and Redmi brand smartphones together ranked No.1 in sales volume on Tmall.com, JD.com and Suning.com. The Group’s premium smartphones also ranked No.1 among Android smartphones priced above RMB4,000 on Tmall.com and JD.com.

In addition, during the shopping festival, the total sales volume of Xiaomi’s smartphones from its offline channels increased by more than 110% year-over-year.

Dossier: Double 11 (Singles Day)

There are some new “situations” in this year’s 618 festival.

On the one hand, 618 has become an important opportunity for online shopping of high value and large commodities; on the other hand, it’s also a good time for families to stock up, including the sales of home appliances, 3C, food, beauty products, and etc, which will reach the peak in the first half of the year during 618.

At the same time, many big brands lead the promotion activities, and the promotion discounts also attract many new consumers.

Smart and high-quality differentiated products have become the hot spots trends in the field of home appliances, driven by promotions from both home appliance brands and major e-commerce platforms.

Get an introduction of 618 Shopping Festival here.

80% of the enterprises, surveyed by Chinese media Yibang, participated in Tmall 618, more than half of them invested more than 30% of the 618 budget in Tmall, and 40% of the enterprises surveyed expected that more than half of the 618 sales would come from Tmall.

50% of the enterprises interviewed said that in the past year, Tmall had the highest conversion among all platforms.

CIW Dossier: 618 Shopping Festival provides a perspective of the merchants regarding the performance, advertising budget, and sales expectations on the top e-commerce platforms for 618 shopping festival.

Update (21 June 2021): During this year’s “618” (June 1-20), the State Post Bureau observed more than 6.59 billion pieces of parcels, a year-on-year increase of 24.24%, and an increase of 84.16% compared with the same period in 2019.

China’s total 618 sales in 2021 reached 578.48 billion yuan, an increase of 26.5% YoY, according to data from Syntun. Top 3 channels by total sales are Tmall, JD, and Pinduoduo. Download CIW Dossier: 618 Shopping Festival to get more sales insights.

Alibaba Tmall 618

Over 67% consider Tmall as the top platform for 618.

Among the enterprises surveyed, 51% invested more than 30% of their budgets in tmall. Among them, 10.6% of enterprises allocate more than 80% of the ad budget on the Tmall platform; most allocate 30% to 50% of their total 618 budget on Tmall.

Tmall is giving away RMB10 billion (US$1.57 billion) in consumer coupons and subsidies to help further stimulate post-Covid consumption during Tmall 618 Festival 2021.

According to the official introduction of Tmall, huge discounts will be launched from June 1 to June 20. The specific activities are as follows:

• 20 yuan off every 300 yuan purchase with a total subsidy of 10 billion yuan
• 88vip members will receive additional 520 yuan
• Beauty products at flagship stores are cheaper than duty-free stores

A total of 250,000 brands participate in this year’s Tmall 618, which is 2.5 times that of last year. A total of 13 million products participate in offering discounts, of which 1.4 million are new products.

Tmall merchants almost all started the official live streaming for this year’s 618 shopping festival. About 100 celebrities have locked in Taobao Live to interact with fans. More than 500 CEOs have already made time for Tmall 618 in the agenda to face consumers and offer more brand discounts.

For more established brands, this year’s 618 festival is all about membership engagement. Shoppers who have signed up their favorite brands’ membership on Tmall can expect more additional benefits.

Tmall 618 sales

Millions of loyalty-program members on Tmall helped drive sales for 25 brands, which had each exceeded RMB100 million in transactions on June 1.

As of June 16, brand merchants have acquired nearly 60 million new members during Tmall 618, and some saw more than 50% of the transactions come from members. On June 1 alone, the first day of Tmall 618, there were 25 brands with a turnover of over 100 million yuan from members.

Since the beginning of this year, Tmall has strengthened its membership operation. The exclusive rights and benefits of brand members will be revealed many times in the search results and commodity display pagse, and various tools such as exclusive rights and benefits of members and member interaction are also provided for merchants.

About 20 brand merchants exceeded 10 million member milestone on Tmall. Alibaba didn’t disclose detailed sales value this year.

Tmall Hey Box: Alibaba’s best seller incubator for top brands

JD.com 618

Jingdong announced it will focus on live streaming, short videos, graphics, and quiz to enrich its content marketing for the ongoing 618 Grand Promotion at a kick-off event on May 20 in Beijing.

JD.com will invite more than 300 celebrities, and executives from nearly 600 brand partners to participate in various promotions through live streaming during the promotion.

The company will also invite KOLs and celebrities to create short videos to assist promotion. More than 1,000 professional buyers or KOLs from different categories will be invited to share their favorite products to drive more traffic to JD.com.

JD will hold two galas through live streaming inviting celebrities to bring consumers the festive atmosphere of 618. Leveraging JD and WeChat’s strength, JD will offer live streaming through 10 WeChat accounts.

Over 30,000 new brands and stores were launched during 618 on JD Super, JD’s online supermarket, with over 2.4 million new products.

Shoppers in Nanjing, Jiangsu province are the most active, taking the crown for the largest order volume.

Group buying is most used in Harbin. The average amount per group buy order in the chilly capital of Heilongjiang province in Northeast China this year exceeds RMB 1,000 yuan.

Other top competitors for 618 include Kuaishou, Douyin (TikTok), Pinduoduo, and Meituan.

JD & Douyin (TikTok)

JD signed a 20 billion yuan collaboration agreement with Douyin (TikTok). And, JD’s products are integrated on Douyin in this year’s 618 festival and users can buy JD products on Douyin directly without being redirected to an external page.

JD 618 Sales

In the first three minutes on Jun. 18, JD Super, JD’s online supermarket, saw sales increase 10 times, and in the first two minutes, packaged foods exceeded RMB 300 million yuan while the maternal and baby category exceeded RMB 200 million yuan.

In the first hour on Jun. 18, JD Fresh saw sales increase 70% YOY. Looking at sub-categories, seafood, meat, eggs and poultry, and fruit and vegetables increased 160%, 105% and 80% respectively. Sales of food which require little effort to prepare increased 160%.

JD.com reported a total transaction of over RMB 343.8 billion yuan for its 18-day 618 shopping festival 2021, representing a growth of 27.7% YoY from the same period in 2020 (RMB 269.2 billion yuan).

The pet category has boomed. Post-90s consumers spent an average of RMB 507 yuan per month on pet products in 2021. During 618, smart pet products increased 47% YOY.

Luxury products. Sales of Ferragamo, TOD’s, and BALLY increased 150%, 232% and 600% respectively. In addition, over 20 designer brands saw sales increase over 15 times YoY on JD platform. Consumers continue to embrace the convenience of buying luxury products online.

Sales of imported gaming phones on JD Worldwide increased by nearly three times. Imported dry cat food increased by 108%.

During the 18-day promotion, sales of JD’s online real estate business increased 230% YOY. Sales of housekeeping and cleaning services increased 6.3 times while the order number of car maintenance increased 285%.

Genetic testing service sales increased 23 times, making it the fastest-growing category of healthcare services on Jingdong. Oral health product sales increased 447%.

The top five international brands are Aptamil from Germany, Estee Lauder from the U.S., A2 from Australia, Nintendo from Japan, and Sulwhasoo from Korea. In the fresh food category, 5 million Zespri kiwis and 260,000 durians from Thailand were sold during the 18-day sale.

Social e-commerce Pinduoduo’s road to brand upgrade

618 Sales performance of other brands and platforms

Xiaomi 618

From June 1 to 18, the total GMV across all Xiaomi’s platforms exceeded 19 billion yuan (US$29.37 bn), with a year-on-year growth of 90%.

Its sales volume of smartphones ranked first among all Android phones, the TV category won first place in the sales volume / sales values. Xiaomi 11 Pro is the best selling model on both JD and Tmall.

Xiaomi’s offline sales channels saw 123% YoY increase in total transaction values. Live streaming delivered 1.34 billion yuan in total sales, an 92% growth YoY.

Douyin (TikTok) 618

Douyin 618 started on June 1st and ended at 8 a.m. on June 19th. The top 5 best-selling brands are:

1. Chuchu (new brand)
2. WHOO
3. China Gold
4. Shepinhui
5. Huawei

Apple ranks sixth overall or second after Huawei under “3C electronics” category.

The top five are expected to have sales of more than 100 million yuan. Unfortunately, Apple, Adidas, Nike, and other international brands are not expected to exceed 100 million yuan in sales on Douyin, according to Chinese media Yibang Dongli.

Douyin saw the largest new user growth of over 392% YoY among post-00s, followed by post-90s (+225.9% YoY).

This is Apple’s second year of participation in 618 and saw a sales increase of 16% YoY, according to data from Counterpoint Research.

You can bookmark this page or sign up for our weekly newsletter for future updates.

Social e-commerce Pinduoduo’s road to brand upgrade

“Shopping Accounts” is under Tencent Huiju, which is a mini program for select brand products, launched by Tencent Smart Retail in December 2020. Huiju aggregates different household name brands’ WeChat mini programs including Walmart and Starbucks, similar to Alibaba Taobao’s upgrade Tmall, a platform for well-known brands.

Tencent Huiju currently covers about 11 categories of products, namely supermarket fresh food, leisure snacks, household department stores, catering and food, beauty shop, men’s clothing shop, sports hall, shoe and bag shop, women’s clothing shop, baby and children’s shop, and medicine shop.

As of May 15, a total of 354 brands have set up their Huiju stores.

Huiju is defined as “the social e-commerce practice solution of Tencent Advertising”. Huiju subsidizes the platform users with the traffic acquisition cost for social community distribution to achieve a lower acquisition cost and help the “private domain growth” of businesses.

In the future, Huiju will introduce new interactive play methods, such as group buying discounts, brand live streaming, and new user red envelope.

Tencent Huiju’s new function “shopping accounts” is more eye-catching.

The steps for users to register “shopping account” are very simple. Any WeChat user can open the Tencent Huiju mini program to easily get a “shopping account” linked to her own WeChat personal account to sell products from Huiju to potentially earn commissions.

The “shopping account” is equivalent to a virtual store where individuals share their “favorite” products from Huiju platform. Users can select product from Huiju platform and put them on the “my product list”.

The initial shopping account has only four product listing locations and one can’t change the listed product in three days.

The higher the “influence” of the shopping account, the more recommended places they can get. The account owner can share these products with WeChat friends, who could buy the products at a price lower than the platform, also known as “exclusive price”.

For merchants, they can potentially enjoy the huge traffic with much lower cost from WeChat’s 1.2+ billion users, which remains to be proven. Currently, shopping account owners can’t get cash rewards from successful referring products to their WeChat connections. And, the lacks of shopping habits on WeChat and customer support are both hindrances.

There’s a community feature where shopping account owners can see recommended products from friends as well as the accounts’ referred sales and visits:

This product seems to be still in its early stage with many frictions to clear to realize the social e-commerce potential. Check out another product Tencent officially launched as a Pinduoduo competitor here.

The Greater Bay Area is home to more top brands than any other region in China with 134 brands represented in the ranking.

The banking sector dominates with 85 brands accounting for 22% of total brand value in ranking, with ICBC once again crowned China’s most valuable brand.

Leading fight against health emergency, pharma sector sees greatest brand value increase, up staggering 123%. Leading the way as the sector’s most valuable brand is Sinopharm, which has recorded a 58% brand value increase to US$3.2 billion.

Retail is the second most valuable sector – with 17 brands featuring and accounting for 10% of the total brand value – and also the second-fastest-growing sector, recording a cumulative brand value growth of 54%.

The top four Chinese e-commerce brands – Taobao, Tmall, Alibaba.com, and JD.com – have all seen significant brand value growth. Taobao (brand value US$53.3 billion) and Tmall (brand value US$49.2 billion) have entered the top 10 for the first time following 44% and 60% brand value increases, respectively.

Alibaba.com’s brand value has been boosted by 108% to US$39.2 billion, simultaneously propelling the brand from 22nd to 13th – a result of a huge spike in demand. JD.com enjoyed an 82% brand value increase to US$23.5 billion, following a 30% rise in its annual shopper count.

Pinduoduo is the fastest growing brand in China, up 148% to US$6.3 billion and jumping 60 places in the ranking to 63rd. Read about Pinduoduo’s road to brand upgrade.

Perseverance of brands in investment and infrastructure development pays off – solid performances across real estate and engineering & construction sectors.

Media sector surges 33%.

• WeChat is China’s and the world’s strongest brand with a top score of 95.4 out of 100 and AAA+ brand strength rating.
• TikTok/Douyin (brand value US$18.7 billion), has taken the 24th spot as the highest new entrant.
• Bilibili up 106% to US$1.9 billion

Top 500 Chinese Brands in 2021

Members can download the list here (Excel; annual and CIW Premium subscribers).

Top Global Brands 2021

US and Chinese brands account for two-thirds of the total brand value of the world’s 500 most valuable brands, according to the latest report by Brand Finance – a brand valuation consultancy.

US brands boast a cumulative brand value of a staggering US$3.3 trillion, equating to 46% of the total brand value in the ranking. Chinese brands’ total brand value is US$1.4 trillion, equating to 20%.

Apple has overtaken Amazon and Google to reclaim the title of the world’s most valuable brand for the first time since 2016 with an impressive 87% brand value increase to US$263.4 billion and.

• Tesla leaves traditional auto marques behind with the fastest brand value growth in ranking, up 158%
  CBS is the fasting-falling brand in ranking, down 49%
• Airline and aerospace sectors account for 6 out of 10 fastest-falling brands in the ranking
• Hospitality suffers from travel and dining restrictions, as Marriott and Airbnb check out from ranking and Starbucks, McDonald’s, and KFC see brand values drop
• Mastercard’s Ajay Banga best among top 100 CEOs in Brand Finance Brand Guardianship Index 2021

Top 100 best Chinese brands, led by Alibaba and Tencent

Jingdong (JD.com) total 11-day sales during Double 11 2020 grew by 32% YoY and reached 271.5 billion yuan (US$41.02 bn) in GMV. Tmall’s 11-day Singles’ Day sales reached 498.2 billion yuan (US$75.27 billion) with an increase of 26% YoY.

Tmall Historial Double 11 Sales

CIW Premium subscribers can download this year’s update on Double 11 here.

Double 11 Sales 2020

Lenovo reported total sales of 1.3 billion yuan in the first hour of the first day (1 Nov). Xiaomi received total sales of over 1 billion yuan in less than 20 minutes of the first day.

Tmall Double 11 Sales

In just two minutes, Tmall’s smart home sales exceeded 100 million yuan on the first day. And more than 1 million smart home devices were sold in one hour.

As of 1:00 a.m. on Nov 1, the total sales of Tmall Smart Speaker ranked first in the smarter speaker category. Among them, the total sales of smart screen products increased 14 times year on year.

By 1:51 am on Nov 1, 100 brands, including Apple, L’Oreal, Haier, Estee Lauder, Nike, Huawei, Midea, Lancome, Xiaomi, Adidas had a total sales of more than 100 million yuan (US$14.95 million). The most popular categories are 3C and cosmetics.

Update (11 Nov): According to the data of Taobao Live, the proportion of GMV via live streaming exceeded 60%, and the number of live streaming merchants increased by 220%. Taobao Live promoted more than 4 million employment opportunities.

Alibaba Tmall Double 11 total GMV in 2020 reached 372.3 billion yuan (US$56.46 bn) as of 00:30 am on 11 November.

Update (12 Nov): Tmall’s 11-day Singles’ Day sales reached 498.2 billion yuan (US$75.27 billion).

• 250,000 brands in total participated in Double 11 this year, of which 31,000 are overseas brands. Within these overseas brands, 2,600 participated in 11.11 for the first time.
• 357 emerging brands became top sellers in their respective subcategories. More than 1,800 emerging brands surpassed their GMV from Double 11 last year and, of these, 94 emerging brands enjoyed sales growth of over 1,000%.
• Under Alibaba’s Spring Thunder initiative, 1.2 million merchants and 300,000 factories focused on overseas trade from more than 2,000 industry clusters across China participated in Double 11.
• AI customer chatbot handled over 2.1 billion queries during the 11-day period.
• The United States was the top country selling to China by GMV.
  • Other top-selling countries to China, in alphabetical order, include: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and UK.

JD.com Double 11 Sales

Jingdong (JD) released the first day Double 11 report, and the turnover of the whole day increased by more than 90% year on year.

According to JD big data, FMCG products such as milk and dairy products, shampoo, rice, biscuit cake and paper drawing have become the top five categories in terms of sales, while 3C household appliances such as mobile phones, washing machines, flat-panel TVs, refrigerators, laptops and other household appliances rank first by total sales.

JD Plus, which recently reached 20 million members, saw a lot of activity on Nov 1st. The number of new users on Nov. 1st increased 113% YoY.

JD’s C2M home appliances, which have quickly become popular for their high cost-to-performance ratio also performed well. Twenty products from this line selected as priority quickly exceeded sales of RMB 200 million yuan on the first day.

Personal care home appliances grew 180% on the first day of sales, among which makers of hair dryers, electric razors and more such as Dyson, Philips, Flyco, Panasonic, Braun and Oral B were highest ranked in terms of sales.

Mobile phone sales in half an hour saw 314% growth. JD’s special mobile phone for the elderly saw eight times growth in the first 15 minutes, while users who participated in JD’s trade in program in the first 30 minutes increased 465%.

JD Luxury saw whole day sales on Nov. 1 up 138% YoY. In the first 30 minutes, 127 brands including Ferragamo, Ralph Lauren and Tod’s saw sales up 10 times YOY. International jewelry brands were up six times.

Update (11 Nov): JD Double 11 total GMV in 2020 since 1 November exceeded 200 billion yuan (US$30.33 bn) as of 00:09 am on 11 November. Here are a few quick highlights:

• In 6 seconds sales generated from live-streaming exceeded RMB 100 million yuan
• In the first 11 minutes, JD private label sales exceeded sales of the whole day on Nov. 11^th last year
• Haier, Midea, Gree and other brands sold over RMB 100 million yuan in products in one minute
• Huawei Mate 40 sales in 7 seconds exceeded RMB 100 million yuan
• Over 100,000 computers were sold in 10 minutes
• The turnover of JD Super, JD’s online supermarket increased 10 times YOY in the first five mins of sales
• JD Fresh increased 5 times YOY in the same timeframe
• JD’s international business saw transaction volume increase more than 120% YOY in the first 10 minutes
• JD’s imported goods supermarket saw turnover increase 2.5 times month-on-month
• 93% of first party orders placed during the Singles Day Grand Promotion have been delivered to customers in 24 hours

JD’s Consumer-to-Manufacturer (C2M) home appliances, which quickly became popular in the market because of their high-cost performance and ability to meet consumers’ demands, were highly sought after during the Singles Day period.

Twenty products hand selected by JD as development priorities quickly exceeded RMB 200 million yuan when the official sales period kicked off on Nov. 1^st.

C2M relies heavily on JD’s supply chain abilities. JD helped with sales forecasts for 33,000 brands and 5 million products and automatically deployed them to the locations nearest to users in advance.

Update (12 Nov): Jingdong (JD.com) total sales during Double 11 2020 grew by 32% YoY and reached 271.5 billion yuan (US$41.02 bn) in GMV.

Starbucks saw one-day GMV growth of over 90% YoY on 11 Nov to 200 million yuan.

Other Platforms

Suning reported 5 billion yuan sales across all channels as of 00:19 am on 11 Nov.

Gome GMV increased by 166%. In terms of online platforms, the sales of general merchandise increased by 237% month on month, and that of maternal and infant commodities increased by 314%.

Xiaomi reported total sales of 14.3 billion yuan across all platforms in the 11-day sales.

Come back soon; we’ll update with the latest information on Double 11. You can subscribe to e-newsletter or paid subscription. 

Dossier: Double 11

How JD penetrates lower-tier cities with social e-commerce initiative

Double 11 Introduction

Alibaba Tmall Double 11

Alibaba Taobao kicked off its Double Eleven Global Shopping Festival (“Double 11”), the largest annual shopping festival in China, on 21 October 2020 with new innovations and features to meet rapidly changing consumer trends.

These include the participation of Alipay’s digital lifestyle platform; broader consumer reach and bigger promotions, “double” the number of shopping windows that will spotlight more brands, products and special offers, and the popular live streaming technology creating more fun and engagement for Chinese consumers with the largest international presence to date.

For many brands, Double 11 is the single biggest growth driver every year and this year will be no exception. Check out Double 11 2019 performance.

Read our guide on Double 11 here.

Deepening Engagement to Create “Double” Opportunities

This year the Taobao/Tmall Double 11 Festival expands the concept from “single” to “double,” enabling merchants to double up on promoting their products to consumers across China not just once, but twice, according to Alibaba’s official announcement.

A new sales window will be added from November 1 to 3 on Taobao/Tmall platforms, ahead of the main event on November 11, with the aim of providing merchants, specifically new brands and small businesses, the opportunity to showcase their products and tell their brand stories amid the pandemic.

Double 11 has become one of the most important new product launch events of the year for many brands. This year, more than 2 million new products will be introduced, which is double the amount compared to last year.

Double 11 will be offering more opportunities for merchants both online and offline to engage with consumers as well as provide a better consumer experience overall.

This year’s Taobao Double 11 experience will also be enhanced by Alipay’s digital lifestyle platform, which brings together nearly 2 million local service providers offering special promotions in more than 100 cities.

Offline small- and micro-merchants across China, such as street stalls and neighborhood grocery stores, will be able to participate in the excitement of Double 11 by connecting with consumers through Alipay’s digital lifestyle platform.

Big Growth Driver for Participating Brands

Alibaba launched Spring Thunder Initiative early this year as a continuous effort on merchants empowerment and Double 11 is yet another milestone to help merchants regain growth.

This year’s Taobao Double 11 Festival will feature 14 million value-for-money products from more than 250,000 brands available on Tmall.

Also, to cater for the needs of customers in lower-tier cities, Taobao Deals’ “RMB1 Sales” campaign will enable consumers to purchase goods at huge discounts with free shipping.

To meet Chinese consumers’ increasing demand for international products, Tmall Global will bring more than 2,600 new overseas brands to Chinese consumers for the first time. Alibaba’s cross-border e-commerce platform Kaola will also join Double 11 for the first time, featuring products from 89 countries and regions.

Live streaming and Logistics Core to the Event

Live streaming is expected to take the center stage of this year’s Taobao/Tmall Double 11.

In addition to sessions hosted by top live streamers, about 400 company executives and 300 celebrities will also hold individual live streaming sessions. Taobao Live will offer sessions ranging from cosmetics, electronics, to cars and houses.

New features like online property viewings and virtual vehicle test drives will provide a more realistic and engaging experience to help consumers with their buying decisions. Alibaba’s DAMO Academy will use artificial intelligence technology to create its first virtual live streaming host while Fliggy will host travel-related live streams.

This year’s event will have the largest international presence since it was founded in 2009.

AliExpress now sells to more than 200 countries and regions worldwide. Lazada was the first to bring the shopping festival concept to Southeast Asia across six markets – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Shopping festivals such as Double 11 have also become one of the key industry growth drivers as local small-and-medium businesses participate in this biggest event alongside LazMall, the region’s largest online mall with more than 18,000 local and international brands.

This year Lazada will continue its “shoppertainment” features ranging from live streaming to new consumer games and innovations such as voice search to find items.

Alibaba’s robust technology and logistics infrastructure is the backbone of the Double 11 Shopping Festival. Cainiao will charter approximately 700 flights during Double 11. More than 50% of this year’s cross-border parcels are expected to be delivered twice as fast as its usual speed.

JD Double 11

JD also kicked off its Double 11 2020 campaign on 21 October 2020. JD is expected to be the first choice of consumers buying 3C products (mostly computer, consumer electronics, and communication products) in this year’s Singles Day promotion, according to Nielsen.

Double 11 Pre-sales

Nearly 140 million items were sold during the pre-sales period from October 21st to 28th, an increase of over 42.3% from the same period last year, of which JD.com sales increased by 85.5%, according to O&O Consulting.

Products worth more than RMB 1,000 yuan accounted for 48.3% of JD’s pre-sales. Pre-sales of medicine and health care on JD increased by 378% YoY while home furnishings increased by 79.3%. One of the reasons cited for the increase is people’s yearning for a sense of security and stability after a very tumultuous start to 2020.

During the pre-sales, home appliances, computer and office supplies, maternal and child, medical and health care and other categories saw growth of over 100% YoY, indicating that after the epidemic consumer demand to “settle down” has become more important.

According to JD’s own data, from October 21st-29th advanced orders for health equipment, Chinese and western medicine, and traditional nourishment on JD’s platform increased more than 10 times compared with the same period last year.

Orders for fitness and exercise equipment increased more than three times, while health-conscious small home appliances increased four times YoY.

In terms of key sub-categories such as computers, electrical appliances and home furnishing, JD’s pre-sale volume of mid and high-end goods exceeded peers, especially in the home decoration category.

O&O data finds that consumers have a tendency to turn to JD for purchases in the durable consumer categories such as large household appliances, computers, and household appliances, with the platform making up 62.7%, 82.6% and 82.7% of pre-orders respectively by category.

Total transactions during China’s 618 shopping festival in 2020 reached 16.91 trillion yuan (about US$2.38 trillion), up 42% from last year, according to Chinese online payment clearing house NetsUnion Clearing Corporation (NUCC).

During the “618” online shopping festival from June 1 to June 18, a total of 26.18 billion transactions were made, an increase of 52% year on year, said the NUCC.

Alibaba Taobao/Tmall 618 2020

More than 100,000 brands have signed up for this year’s Tmall 618, double that of last year’s 618. More than 10 million items have been discounted to participate, which is in line with last year’s Double 11.

Tmall 618 generated a total sales of 698.2 billion yuan (US$98.49 bn). SME merchants saw one more billion orders during this year’s Tmall 618.

The import consumption of Tmall Global increased by 43% year on year. The direct purchase transactions of overseas warehouses increased by 199% year-on-year. As of June 18, more than 4,000 overseas brands doubled year-on-year growth.

Over 2 million merchants opened stores on Alibaba’s Taobao e-commerce platform since the pandemic, creating over 40 million jobs. C2M orders have grown by 500% YoY.

Tmall 618 Warming Up

On May 19, Tmall announced that during the period of 618, Tmall will, together with many local governments and brands, issue the largest scale of cash consumption coupons and subsidies this year, with an estimated amount of more than 10 billion yuan.

Chinese cities have been issuing billions worth of e-coupons to stimulate consumption.

Mini Program platform compared: WeChat vs. Alibaba vs. Baidu

According to Tmall, more than 100,000 brands have signed up for this year’s Tmall 618, double the number last year.

In addition, more than 10 million products will offer discounts in this year’s Tmall 618, which is in line with last year’s Tmall Double 11. All these figures have broken the historical record of Tmall 618.

In this year’s Tmall 618, Alibaba took “consumption voucher” as a new way of “festival making”, leading the national consumption recovery, promoting the release of China’s domestic demand potential, and bringing the biggest growth opportunity for the brand in the first half of this year.

Tmall said that the cash consumption coupons and subsidies issued by Tmall 618 will cover the broadest population ever. Besides, the conditions for using cash vouchers and subsidies will also be the most relaxed this year.

Tmall 618 presales started from 0:00 on May 25, with official sales starting on June 1 until June 20, 2020.

The epidemic has affected all aspects of society, and businesses have also suffered from different degrees of damage. They are looking forward to “a key battle”, either to turn the tide or to ensure growth.

Tmall 618 is such an opportunity. According to the analysis of the insiders, the biggest wave of consumption subsidy will come in Tmall 618 after the epidemic enters the stage of normalization prevention and control.

Tmall and over 100 furniture sellers, such as IKEA, Kohler, KUKA, QuanU, and Linshimuye, will launch a 3D shopping feature, allowing customers to “see” how the furniture fits into their homes.

Affected by the epidemic, since February of this year, a large number of offline stores have launched stores on Tmall, including IKEA, Tesla, and etc.

Close to 180 luxury brands are participating this year, nearly double the amount from Double 11 2019 Global Shopping Festival. Burberry, Montblanc, Cartier and Michael Kors are offering customized special edition items co-created with Tmall just for 6.18.

Coach, MCM, and Theory are participating in the campaign for the first time, and all recently launched outlets on Tmall Luxury Soho.

To many merchants in China, previously participating in the 618 promotion was a growth engine; but, now it’s more “life saving”.

Tmall 618 First Day Sales

In the first hour of Tmall 618 pre-sale, the total transactions increased by 515% year on year. Within the first two hours of the pre-sale, the transactions of several brands including Lancome and L’Oreal exceeded 100 million yuan. Subscribe to get more timely insights.

At the opening, an hour and 29 minutes of Tmall 618, the total transactions referred by Taobao Live reached 2 billion yuan (US$280 million), far more than that of the same period last year.

Since the launch of Tmall 618’s pre-sale on May 25, the number of live shows on Taobao has exceeded 1.4 million.

On June 1, Taobao Live delivered total sales of 5.1 billion yuan with over 20 brands and merchants exceeding 10 billion yuan in live streaming.

Jingdong (JD) 618 2020

JD 618 total transactions (1-18 Jun) reached 269.2 billion yuan (US$37.98 bn), up 33.6% YoY.

• Top categories by growth rate: fresh food, medical & health care, kitchenware
• Top categories by sales: mobile phones, home appliances, PC & digital products
• Top categories by the total number of customers: food & beverages, baby & maternal, beauty products

JD’s 7Fresh GMV increased by 100% year on year, and the turnover of more than 1000 fresh brands doubled during JD 618 sales (1-18 Jun).

More than 25,000 live broadcasts of Jingdong home appliances during 618 delivered the more GMV than the first five months’ total.

In addition, during the whole 618 periods, the cumulative turnover of air conditioners doubled over the previous year; the cumulative turnover of refrigerators and washing machines increased by 130% over the previous year; there are 10 third-party stores with a turnover of more than 100 million yuan on JD home appliance platform, and more than 1000 third-party stores with a turnover of more than one million yuan.

This is the 17th year for JD.com to hold its 618 Grand Promotion. JD will provide RMB 10 billion yuan in subsidies, hundreds of billions of discounts, and 10 billion yuan consumption coupons during the JD 618 event this year, announced on 25 May.

JD 618 Planning

This year’s 618 is the sales promotion with the largest amount of discounts ever with most new product launches. Among the many discounts and promotions offered, JD.com provided over 200 million units at a 50% discount and sell over 200 million units of new products.

JD.com would also help more than 150 brands to sell over RMB 100 million in products through innovative empowerment initiatives, subsidy support and other measures, and help more than 100,000 small and medium-sized brands and merchants to double their transactions.

JD would host over 300,000 key live streaming sessions during this year’s 618. It will also work with partners including Kuaishou, Douyin (TikTok), Wesee, Bilibili, Huya, Douyu, and others.

JD would invite top executives from brands such as Huawei, Honor, and Haier to interact with consumers directly, offering big discounts. JD’s executives and sales managers will also join JD Live.

JD Live would invite more than 100 civil servants, such as mayors, county heads, and directors of commerce to act as live streaming anchors to promote local agricultural products to help farmers and industries affected by COVID-19.

Home Appliance

Over 40 brands have created over 200 special production lines to produce over 1,000 exclusive products.

For example, Dyson would offer 70% of its Dyson Airwrap inventory to JD during 618. Some other promotions include a 60-inch 4K TV for less than RMB 2,000 yuan, a 55-inch 4K smart TV for RMB 1399 yuan, a Panasonic dishwasher for RMB 1899 yuan, and a new Midea air circulator for RMB 459 yuan – prices are significantly lower than usual.

JD has upgraded its service during 618 so that customers can enjoy a 30-day price protection policy for home appliances bought on JD’s first-party platform, and the option to replace a new home appliance with a quality problem within 180 days.

JD would also provide integrated delivery and installation service for TVs, and fast installation service for air conditioners.

JD would also offer RMB 300-600 yuan subsidies for people who trade in old air conditioners for new ones. It would provide a pre-sale video service to help guide consumers in the purchase of home appliances.

In addition, offline stores JD’s E-Space would participate in a 24-hour promotion on June 18th, providing customers with subsidies and discounts. JD’s over 12,000 home appliance experience stores would leverage live streaming for marketing promotion, covering Hebei, Henan, Hunan, and Guangdong provinces.

JD 618 First Day Sales

JD 618 started at 0:00 on June 1. According to JD, in the first hour, the transactions of Apple products were three times of that of the same period last year; luxury goods achieved a 400% growth and completing full day sales last year.

June 1st, the first day of JD’s 618 Grand Promotion, saw total transaction growth of 74% YoY. Forty brands individually achieved sales of over RMB 100 million. Check out the 7 consumption trends based on first-day sales data.

Sales of JD Super, JD.com’s online supermarket, increased by 100% compared with the same period last year. Sales of JD.com’s 7FRESH increased by more than 140% compared with the same period last year and JD New Markets grew by more than 100% year on year.

Compare with the same period last year:

• On June 1^st, sales of food categories in JD Super was three times.
• Sales of baby and maternal categories increased by 100%
• Sales of pants-type sanitary pads in the individual care category and female care increased by 12 times.
• Dental patches under the subdivision of oral care increased 19 times
• Sales of smart pet devices increased nearly 7 times
• The two-hour sales of toys exceeded the all-day sales of last year.

JD.com’s customized products also witnessed explosive growth including C2M, exclusive brands, first sales of new products, underwriting of tail goods, exclusive specifications, etc., and in only 4 hours exceeded the all-day sales in the same period last year.

JD Super brand merchants and retailers made efforts to reach the lower tier market. JD Super got off to a good start for 12 hours on June 1st. Sales in the lower tiers market increased by 160% compared with the same period last year, and the number of users from lower-tier markets increased by 83% compared with the same period last year.

JD.com’s outbound e-commerce platform witnessed a 742% growth in transaction volume on June 1st , compare with the same day of last year.  The top five markets are the United States, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Canada.

The number of customers in Hong Kong grew by 370% year-on-year, while transaction volume by 266% year-on-year.

JD Worldwide (Cross-border e-commerce platform)

On June 18th, sales of JD Worldwide (JD’s cross-border import e-commerce platform) increased 110% y-o-y. Imported pet products increased nearly 400% y-o-y, imported beauty products increased 180% y-o-y, and imported electronics products, maternal and baby products, health care products, fashion products have all increased over 100% y-o-y.

From June 1^st to 18^th, over 30% of countries saw sales of their products more than doubled.

JD Worldwide has introduced over 1,000 new brands as of May 2020, and welcomed over 500 stores on third-party platform, including Abbott, Nestlé, as well as international chains such as South Korean department store AKPLAZA and Japanese drugstore Daikoku Cosmetics. During this 618, sales of the stores increased by over 100%.

This 618, JD Worldwide introduced 30,000 new international products to JD customers. On June 18^th, sales of new products were 15 times that of the average daily sales in May. From June 1^st to 18^th, sales of over half of the new products increased by over 200% compared with the same period of May.

Other Retailer & E-commerce Platforms

Gome’s one day GMV on 18 June increased by 73.8% YoY. 65 inch TV sales increased 186% year-on-year, and OLED TV showed 285% growth. Its 618 sales (1-18 Jun) exceeded May’s total sales.

Xiaomi’s total sales have reached 10 billion yuan across all platforms during the 18-day sales period.

Subscribe to CIW Weekly, our weekly e-newsletter to receive updates:

[do_widget id=enews-ext-2]

Top traffic driver compared: TikTok/Douyin vs. Kuaishou vs. Bilibili vs. RED

Alibaba’s Tmall reached 10 billion yuan in less than two minutes (00:01:36) and 30 billion yuan in about 5 minutes (00:05:25), 50 billion in 13 minutes (00:12:49) in Double 11 Global Shopping Festival 2019.
Related Dossier: Double 11 Statistics

Tmall Double 11 2019

Alibaba’s Tmall Double Eleven presale started on 21 October and reach its peak on 11 November 2019.

Tmall has kicked off this year’s Double 11 Festival campaign in mid-September. Tmall stores could apply for their participation in Double 11 2019 from 12 September to 20 September.

Over 200,000 brands are participating, one million new products are on offer and more than 500 million users are expected to participate in this year’s festival – about 100 million more than last year. Estimated consumer savings from brand and platform promotions and coupons are around RMB 50 billion.

Tmall also has a strict requirement on the shipping dates. All ordered during 11-15 Nov must be shipped before 18 November. The same requirement applies to its cross-border shopping platform Tmall Global.

Products for Double 11 Festival are required to apply no less than 10% discount off the corresponding lowest regular pricing.

The total number of participating brands on Tmall for this year’s Double 11 exceeded 200,000 with one million new products. Check out Alibaba’s historical Double 11 sales dataAlibaba’s historical Double 11 sales data here

Tmall / Taobao Sales on Double 11 2019

• At 00:17:06 11 Nov, total sales of 57.1 billion yuan, exceeded Double 11 2014 full day’s GMV
• 01:01:32 91.2 billion yuan, exceeded Double 11 2015 full day’s GMV
• 01:03:59 100 billion yuan
• 01:26:07 120.7 billion yuan, exceeded Double 11 2016 full day’s GMV
• 10:04:49 168.2 billion yuan (US$24 bn), exceeded Double 11 2017 full day’s GMV
• 14:21:28 200 billion yuan
• 16:31:13 213.5 billion yuan, exceeded Double 11 2018 full day’s GMV
• Full day sales on Tmall: 268.4 billion yuan (US$38 billion)

The total number of delivery orders also reached a new high: 1.292 billion, up 59% from 812 million last year.

There were 299 brands who reached RMB 100 million in GMV, including Apple, Nike, Estee Lauder and Giorgio Armani.

The top 10 countries selling to China through Alibaba’s cross-border platforms were Japan, the U.S., Korea, Australia, Germany, France, the U.K., New Zealand, Italy and Canada.

Top 10 Best-selling Luggage & Bags Brands on Tmall

1. Xiaomi
2. Charles & Keith
3. Samsonite
4. MCM
5. Michael Kors
6. Cartelo
7. AmericanTourister
8. Septwolves
9. Mexican
10. Goldlion

Top 10 Best-selling Women Apparel Brands on Tmall

1. Uniqlo
2. Bosideng
3. Vero Moda
4. Eifini
5. ONLY
6. Peacebird
7. Leting
8. HStyle
9. Zara
10. MO&CO

Top 10 Best-selling Shoes Brands on Tmall

1. Belle
2. Sketchers
3. Camel
4. Red Dragonfly
5. Warrior
6. UGG
7. Clarks
8. Zulijian
9. Teenmix
10. Hotwind

Top 10 Best-selling Men’s Apparel Brands on Tmall

1. Uniqlo
2. Peacebird
3. GXG
4. Jack Jones
5. Bosideng
6. Semir
7. Mark Fairwhale
8. SELECTED
9. Meters Bonwe
10. HLA

Top 10 Best-selling Electronics Brands on Tmall

1. Apple
2. Huawei
3. Xiaomi
4. Lenovo
5. HP
6. Asus
7. DJI
8. JmGo
9. Dell
10. Sony

Top 10 Best-selling Smartphone Brands on Tmall

1. Apple
2. Huawei
3. Honor
4. Xiaomi
5. Vivo
6. Oppo
7. Samsung
8. Realme
9. Meizu
10. OnePlus

Top 10 Best-selling Large Appliances Brands on Tmall

1. Midea
2. Haier
3. Gree
4. Xiaomi
5. Siemens
6. Littleswan
7. Hisense
8. AUX
9. Skyworth
10. TCL

Top 10 Best-selling Watch & Glasses Brands on Tmall

1. Casio
2. Tissot
3. Daniel Wellington
4. Emporio Armani
5. Longines
6. Tianwang
7. Citizen
8. Baodao
9. Rossini
10. Zippo

Huawei

Huawei’s total sales this year on Tmall exceeded last year’s full day sales in the first 30 minutes, including 100,000 smart watch Watch GT series in 15 minutes, 60,000 units of FreeBuds (earphone) in 30 minutes, and over 50,000 routers in 15 minutes.

Apple

Apple’s official flagship store on Tmall “Singles Day” transaction exceeded 7 times of last year’s full day sales in just 10 minutes. iPhone 11 broke 100 million yuan in sales in 1 minute. Find out details here.

Cosmetics

Cosmetics brand MAC sold 60,000 units of a limited-edition, just-for-11.11 lipstick in five minutes of pre-sales. Ten global brands, including Olay and Shiseido, have committed to incubate more than 50% of their new products with Tmall this year.

Check out Tmall Hey Box: Alibaba’s New Product Incubator

Forrester forecast Alibaba would generate $37 billion in GMV, or a 20.5% jump compared to 2018. It also projects 50 million online buyers in Southeast Asia alone during Singles Day.

JD Double 11 2019 Sales

JD, another key e-commerce shopping platform announced a total order value of 131.3 billion yuan (US$18.73 bn) from 1 November to 10 November midnight.

At the end of 11 November, JD total sales for Double 11 reached 204.4 billion yuan (US$29 billion yuan). JD’s new social e-commerce app Jingxi played an important role.

During the Singles Day promotion, approximately 75% of Jingxi new users came from lower-tier cities, and approximately 55% of total Jingxi users were female. In September, JD.com officially launched its social e-commerce platform Jingxi as part of its strategy to penetrate into lower-tier cities and compete with Pinduoduo.

And, Jingxi’s WeChat Mini Program active users rose to 68 million on Double 11.

Top 5 Best-selling Digital Camera Brands on JD

1. Sony
2. Canon
3. Leica
4. Panasonic
5. Ricoh

Top 5 Best-selling Earphone Brands on JD

1. Apple
2. Huawei
3. Sony
4. Bose
5. Xiaomi

Top 5 Best-selling Smartphone Brands on JD

1. Apple
2. Huawei
3. Honor
4. Xiaomi
5. Vivo

Top 5 Best-selling Home Appliance Brands on JD

1. Midea
2. Haier
3. Gree
4. Xiaomi
5. Siemens

Top 5 Best-selling Sports Brands on JD

1. Adidas
2. Top Sports
3. Converse
4. Anta
5. Li Ning

Suning Double 11 Sales

Suning saw over 100 million yuan in total sales value in the first hour on 11 November 2019. Its offline sales Suning Square grew by 56% YoY.

Suning Double 11 omnichannel sales orders increased by 76% year-on-year.

Xiaomi Double 11 Sales

Total payment received across Xiaomi’s all channels exceeded 2 billion yuan in the first hour and 3.7 billion yuan in half day on 11 November. Xiaomi had a total sales of 6.1 billion yuan (US$870 million) on Double Eleven, 2.1 billion yuan of which came from its Tmall Flagship Store.

Top Shopping Apps

This year’s Double 11, the top 10 shopping mobile apps in China’s Apple App Store saw 1.7 million total first-time installations, accounting for 61% of the total installs in the shopping category, compared with 1.4 million in 2018, an increase of 21%.

Taobao is the most downloaded mobile shopping app this year, with an increase of 119% YoY. The other apps in the top 5 are Pinduoduo, Suning, JD, Tmall.

Top Insights:

• The story of a Taobao celebrity who sold 300 million yuan products on Double 11
• How the biggest shopping festival affects China e-commerce apps users growth, engagement, and loyalty