--- description: China's anti-Valentine's Day has quickly become the biggest single day for online shopping in the world. title: China's 'Singles Day' Leads Alibaba to Over $9 Billion in Sales image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac0cc6f32b0515e9/698768370b72e394516dbdb0/455724150.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Business](/section/business/) ## Business Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Retail](/tag/retail/) ## Retail Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # How China's 'Singles' Day' Notched $9 Billion in Sales on Alibaba ## Video: Alibaba’s Singles’ Day Sales Exceed $9 Billion [Watch (HLS stream): Alibaba’s Singles’ Day Sales Exceed $9 Billion](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/GbIT9Z6Y.m3u8) (1:29)  _Published 2014-11-11. China's e-commerce giant trademarked and publicized Singles Day, a holiday for people without partners that's become a commercial hit._ by [Sam Frizell](/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 11, 2014 5:25 PM CUT  Founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group Jack Ma (L) attends the company's initial price offering (IPO) at the New York Stock Exchange on September 19, 2014 in New York City. Founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group Jack Ma (L) attends the company's initial price offering (IPO) at the New York Stock Exchange on September 19, 2014 in New York City.Andrew Burton—Getty Images by [Sam Frizell](/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 11, 2014 5:25 PM CUT There are too many men in China. That’s not the complaint of a love hungry young Chinese bachelor, but rather a statistical fact: by the year 2020, approximately 30 million more men will reach adulthood and enter the mating market than women. That may not make Chinese men happy, but it’s become a huge annual boost to China’s online retailers. How? Back in the early 1990s, Chinese singles created a sort of anti-Valentine’s Day called Singles’ Day, an annual celebration of bachelorhood or bachelorettehood taking place on November 11\. (numerically, 11/11, the date of lonely “1s.”) Singles’ Day has since evolved into a major shopping holiday, similar to Black Friday or Cyber Monday here in the U.S. And just as U.S. corporations like Hallmark adopted Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to boost sales, Chinese online retailers like Alibaba, a massive online marketplace, have embraced the cultural phenomenon that is Singles’ Day. And that embrace comes with good reason. China’s Alibaba online marketplace alone reported over $9 billion in sales on Tuesday, skyrocketing past the company’s previous Singles’ Day record of about $5.9 billion, MarketWatch [reports](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102172069 "undefined"). Those are stunning numbers — by comparison, U.S. consumers spent just $1.2 billion online during Black Friday last year, [according](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-01/black-friday-online-spending-reached-record-1-2-billion.html "undefined") to ComScore, and another $2.29 billion during [Cyber Monday](http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/12/03/cyber-monday-sales-record/3855391/ "undefined"), per Adobe Systems. (Factoring in physical store sales, [total Black Friday weekend spending](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-02/black-friday-weekend-spending-drop-pressures-u-s-stores.html "undefined") in the U.S. last year was a hair over $57 billion.) Those numbers come just two months after Alibaba went public in a $25 billion U.S.-based public offering, which has since hit the record books as the [world’s biggest-ever IPO](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/22/us-alibaba-ipo-value-idUSKCN0HH0A620140922 "undefined"). ### 5 Quirky Things You Didn't Know About Alibaba's Jack Ma  Ma doesn't mind practicing Tai Chi in public. Here he and Hong Kong comedian Stephen Chow enjoy the ancient martial art at the Communication University of China in Beijing in January, 2013. Li Xueshi—ColorChina/AP  Jack Ma really likes performing on stage, and the more outlandish the clothing, the better. Here, Ma performs at an evening party in Hangzhou, east China on September 10, 2009, to celebrate his company's 10th anniversary—while looking a little like Bjork, if she were 20 years older and a practicing Wiccan. STR/AFP/Getty Images  He's apparently a fan of the Terminator franchise. In 2010 he met then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who presented him with a leather jacket and black sunglasses during a trip to China to represent the "Terminator" outfit. If Ma knew his company would have an IPO in the U.S. four years later, he'd probably have said "I'll be back." ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images  Holding a crystal ball-like orb is a good way to introduce a new software product, if you ask Ma. Here, he and Alibaba.com Vice President Oliver Wang touch a device to signify the launch of the ALISOFT software during a news conference in 2007 in Shanghai, China. Eugene Hoshik—AP  Yes, Ma really does love to sing. His onstage attire was a little less flamboyant by the time this 2013 photo was taken on the 10th anniversary of China's popular Taobao online marketplace, but he is still wearing a silver jacket and what looks like a Kangol. Peter Parks—AFP/Getty Images Singles’ Day is a holiday that speaks to the rapidly growing purchasing power of China’s middle class as well as a culture increasingly focused on the acquisition of material wealth. Accordingly, Singles’ Day has spawned a bevy of outlandish tales that redefine consumerism — one Chinese man, in preparation for Singles’ Day, proposed to his girlfriend in a heart-shaped ring of 99 iPhone 6s that cost about $82,000, reports the [Nanfang](http://www.thenanfang.com/blog/guangzhou-programer-buys-99-iphones-to-propose-to-a-woman/ "undefined"). The woman rejected his proposal. But the Singles’ Day windfall for Chinese retailers like Alibaba is also an accident of China’s one-child policy, instituted in 1979\. The policy led many Chinese—who historically have often preferred to have boys—to take advantage of cheap ultrasound technology that has allowed women to determine the sex of their child in early pregnancy, offering them the option to continue or terminate pregnancies based on gender. The resulting gender imbalance has actually led many of China’s surplus men (and some women as well) to view Singles’ Day as a chance to celebrate what they hope could be the last day of singledom—hence much of the expensive buying, which is tied to gift-giving to woo significant others. Alibaba, which acts as a bazaar for online merchants, has taken advantage to a remarkable extent of growing disposable incomes in China. This year, the company posted the largest initial public offering at $25 billion, launching off its rapid growth in China. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3578200/china-singles-day-alibaba/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3578200/china-singles-day-alibaba/"},"headline":"How China's 'Singles' Day' Notched $9 Billion in Sales on Alibaba","datePublished":"2014-11-11T17:25:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:07:06.233Z","description":"China's anti-Valentine's Day is the world's biggest day for online shopping","url":"https://time.com/3578200/china-singles-day-alibaba/","keywords":["Retail","Shopping","China","alibaba"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac0cc6f32b0515e9/698768370b72e394516dbdb0/455724150.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltac0cc6f32b0515e9/698768370b72e394516dbdb0/455724150.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"China-Based Internet Company Alibaba Debuts On New York Stock Exchange","caption":"China-Based Internet Company Alibaba Debuts On New York Stock Exchange","creditText":"Andrew Burton—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/retail/","name":"Retail"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3578200/china-singles-day-alibaba/","name":"How China's 'Singles' Day' Notched $9 Billion in Sales on Alibaba"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Alibaba’s Singles’ Day Sales Exceed $9 Billion","description":"China's e-commerce giant trademarked and publicized Singles Day, a holiday for people without partners that's become a commercial hit.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/GbIT9Z6Y/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-11-11T16:43:50.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/GbIT9Z6Y.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3578200/china-singles-day-alibaba/","duration":"PT1M29S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3578200/china-singles-day-alibaba/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```