Single’s Day, the mega-shopping holiday created by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., and held each 11/11, has surpassed 2015’s total of $14.3 billion, with several hours left. It is expected that total sales will reach $20 billion.
In 2015, the gross merchandise volume on Singles Day through Alipay on its retail marketplaces made it the largest shopping day in history. It was a whopping 60% increase over the 2014 total of $9.3 billion.
[Related: What We’ve Learned from Singles Day 2015]
Reuters reported that while Singles Day has already outstripped 2015, the growth rate was slower than last year as shoppers are seeking out bigger price breaks.
Tech Crunch offered some perspective about how massive this shopping day is. Black Friday reached $4.5 billion in GMV last year, while Cyber Monday was $3 billion. Singles Day by comparison topped $1 billion in sales in just over four minutes.
Singles’ Day was launched in 2009 by Alibaba in an effort to get consumers without partners to treat themselves.