Early read on China’s 11/11/19

Early read on China’s 11/11/19
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​While totals are just being calculated Alibaba (BABA) noted that by 6PM the sales numbers for merchants on their site had surpassed last year’s total of $30.8b US, indicating that Chinese buyers were taking advantage of sales for this, the biggest shopping day worldwide.  For reference, the 11/11 holiday, also known as ‘Single’s Day’ generated 13 times the daily sales average last year for a total of $30.8b while this year $36b was hit almost half way through the 24 hour period, with $1b being sold in the first 1m and 8 sec.  The US holiday Black Friday is expected to generate ~$29b.  The shopping holiday, which was created as a celebration for single college students in 1993 and then adopted by Alibaba, started off with a concert (The “Countdown Gala”) in Shanghai by Taylor Swift, sponsored by Alibaba, of course.
Chinese smartphone brands all reported spectacular sales numbers during the holiday and while final numbers are not in or verified, here’s what they have said so far:

• Huawei (pvt) – Said sales on its own self-run on-line mall exceeded last year’s total holiday sales in 1 minute
• Huawei’s Honor brand (budget) was the number one seller on all three major e-commerce platforms in the first two hours
• Vivo (pvt) said sales on its e-commerce platform were 3.75 times more than last year in the first two hours
• Oppo (pvt) said sales in the first minute on its website exceeded last year’s entire 11/11 day sales.
• Xiaomi (1810.HK) said sales broke the 1b yuan mark ($143m US) after one hour and were up 22% over the same period last year.

• Sales of Apple (AAPL) products (iPhone 11 included) on Tmall saw the first ten minutes of sales equal to 7 times the whole day sales last year.

Logistics will be the issue now that the 11/11 holiday is over and Alibaba estimates that there will be ~5,000 km of automated shipping lines to manage what is expected to be a 75% increase in orders over last year, with large shipping firms adding significant automated capacity since last year.  These additions are expected to reduce the time to ship by five hours over last year, with new lines able to scan over 1,800 waybills per hour.  While we note that all 11/11 numbers have yet to be verified, it would seem that the 2019 11/11 holiday has been a success and while specific product categories have yet to be deciphered, could go toward reducing bloated CE inventory levels.