Xiaomi Sets Singles Day Sales Record with $3.11 Billion in Transactions

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi has proudly announced its unprecedented success during the recently concluded Singles Day shopping festival, boasting record-breaking sales across various platforms.

From October 23 to November 11, Xiaomi reported an outstanding performance, with a staggering 22.4 billion yuan (approximately $3.11 billion) in product sales on major platforms such as Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo, and Douyin.

Xiaomi’s achievement reflects a 2% surge in its Hong Kong-traded shares late Monday morning, while locally traded shares of Alibaba and JD.com experienced varying fluctuations.

In an interesting development, both Alibaba and JD.com chose to keep their total figures for the Singles Day shopping festival undisclosed for the second consecutive year. JD.com merely highlighted reaching record highs in transaction and order volume, while Alibaba mentioned growth in gross merchandise value (GMV), order numbers, and participating merchants compared to the previous year.

JD.com reported that the transaction volume of Apple products surpassed 10 billion yuan ($1.39 billion), mirroring the results from the 2021 Singles Day. Additionally, Lululemon, a relatively new entrant to the Chinese market, witnessed a remarkable 260% surge in transaction volume on JD.com compared to the previous year.

While Alibaba did not delve into specifics regarding sales by product or brand, Xiaomi claimed that its recently released Xiaomi 14 smartphone secured the top spot on Alibaba’s Tmall from November 4 to 11. Xiaomi also asserted its dominance in various categories of Chinese brands’ smartphone sales on other online shopping platforms.

HSBC analysts expressed optimism about Xiaomi’s performance, stating, “Much better-than-expected Mi14 sales create earnings accretion and potential valuation re-rating ahead.” They subsequently raised their smartphone shipment forecasts for Xiaomi by 7% in 2023 (to approximately 150 million units) and by 6% in 2024 (to 160 million units).

The Singles Day shopping festival has evolved from a one-day event into a multi-week extravaganza across various online platforms in China over the past decade. Despite uncertainties about future income impacting retail sales in China, Alibaba reported that its Singles Day sales in 2022 were “in line” with the prior year’s $84.54 billion GMV during the Covid-19 pandemic.

A pre-festival survey by Bain and Company revealed that 77% of Chinese consumers did not plan to increase spending this year, reflecting economic uncertainties. Nevertheless, livestreaming and short videos on platforms like Alibaba’s Taobao and ByteDance’s Douyin emerged as robust sales channels, with GMV from livestreaming witnessing a 19% increase during this year’s shopping festival.

Tmall dominated the sales landscape, accounting for 60% of sales in the “comprehensive e-commerce platforms” category, according to data from Syntun. JD.com followed with a 28% share, while Pinduoduo secured a 7% share.

Kuaishou, a short video and livestreaming app, reported a nearly 50% growth in orders during the Singles Day shopping period.