Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA) All Heated Up For Singles Day Event

The fanfare and frenzy that normally accompanies Singles Days sales is already heating up in China seen by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA)’s recently established financial arm lending over $4.9 billion. Ant Financial services Group has already witnessed a surge in business mostly from e-commerce platforms led by Taobao and TMall.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) remains confident that at the current wave of lending it can generate record sales on the one-day event amounting to $8.2 billion up from $5.7 billion that was generated in 2013. The surge in lending this year comes on the heels of Alibaba raising its maximum credit for each vendor to a high of $817,000 from last year’s limit of $163,000. Ant has also introduced installment shopping for TMall users awaiting regulatory approval.

Alibaba expects Alipay to generate record transactions this year after processing a historic 188 million transaction last year compared to Visa Inc.(NYSE:V)’s average transaction in a single day of 170 million in 2013. Alipay is reportedly working with banks to ensure that transactions get processed in a timely manner in the process of preventing servers from crashing. Alipay’s mobile service wing Alipay Wallet will also be put to the test at the Single’s Day sales event with its 190 million active users and accounts.

A research carried out by Nielsen consultancy firm on 1,000 people showed that 80% of the people had plans for the big event with 17% of them being first-time participants. The Single’s day event was first floated by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) five years ago as an occasion where people without partners could use to comfort themselves with retail therapy. According to 70% of people surveyed, Tmall and Taobao still remain the favorite spot for carrying out shopping.

Having reported better than expected second quarter earnings Alibaba plans to target buyers and sellers outside China as it seeks to hit record sales with the event. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) which is most valuable brand in China continues its market dominance is expected to grow at the back of the ongoing growth in the mobile side of the business

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