Alibaba's Singles' Day Strength: How Has Chinese Cyber Monday Grown Over The Years?

Even as the company savors its blowout quarter, Benzinga looked at how the company drew inspiration from the Cyber Monday concept and found roaring success with a local adaptation of it.

The third quarter is typically a strong quarter for the company, as it encompasses the Singles' Day in it. The Singles' Day, which commemorates bachelorhood, is observed as an annual shopping event in China on November 11 every year, given that the date has four ‘1s' in it.

Alibaba said in its earnings release that the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival of 2016 was a record-breaking event, with 120.7 billion yuan or $17.4 billion worth of gross merchandise value settled through Alipay on its marketplaces. The company noted 82 percent of it was generated from mobile. The Singles' Day numbers for Alibaba are well ahead of the $3.45 billion in online sales estimated during the Cyber Monday in 2016.

Singles' Day has been observed for eight years now. Data provided by Statista, available from 2011, show that Alibaba had a modest sales number in 2011, which more than tripled in 2012. Subsequently, sales nearly doubled in 2013 and 2014 and continued to rise at a brisk, but toned down pace thereafter.

Years — Sales (in billion yuan) 2011 — 0.82 2012 — 3.04 2013 — 5.8 2014 — 9.3 2015 — 14.3 2016 — 17.79

For the December quarter, its third, the company's annual active buyers rose 9 percent year-over-year to 443 million and mobile monthly active users climbed 25 percent to 4493 million.

The Chinese e-commerce juggernaut is optimistic about its performance going forward, as it raised its revenue growth guidance for the fiscal year 2017 to 53 percent year-over-year from 48 percent.

Singles' Day has become a good prop for the company over the years, boosting top line performance. Alibaba deserves full credits for capitalizing on the frenzy of shopaholics through the annual shopping bonanza.

At the time of writing, shares of Alibaba were up 1.90 percent at $100.28.