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Alibaba raked in $12 billion in two hours during the shopping holiday it helped create (BABA)

Singles' Day is a holiday meant people to treat themselves with gifts in China. Alibaba has turned it into a massive e-commerce event.

  • Singles' Day is a day in China where people often treat themselves with gifts
  • .
  • It's a response to Valentine's day and is on 11/1 — the ones all symbolize single people.
  • Alibaba has championed the shopping holiday and, this year, pulled in $12 billion in just the first two hours.
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In the first two hours of Singles' Day this year, Alibaba pulled in a massive $12 billion in sales, according to the company.

Singles' Day is a holiday created to serve as an alternative to Valentines Day in China. People often celebrate their independence by buying themselves gifts, and Alibaba has turned the holiday into a blowout extravaganza.

It took Alibaba's customers just 2 minutes and 1 second to buy $1 billion worth of stuff during the holiday, which starts at the midnight before November, 11 (11/11.) In the first hour, Alibaba processed 325,000 orders per second and more than 60 brands recorded sales of more than $15 million, the company said in an emailed statement.

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That's absolutely massive and puts US shopping holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday to shame. Amazon's own made up "Prime Day" celebration boasted $1 billion in sales for the first time this year, a feat that took the company 30 hours of sales to achieve.

Combining the most recent Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales gives you only 43% of Alibaba's total sales during last year's Singles' Day. Last year, Alibaba shipped more than 1 billion packages and is on track to well outpace that this year.

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