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Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant company, has continually shocked the market since it became the biggest initial public offering in New York Stock Exchange history. Alibaba reported that the sales on November 11th, also known as Chinese Singles’ Day, skyrocketed to more than $9.3 billion. In 2013, the sales record on Singles’ Day was about $5.8 billion. But before keeping reading the story, here are some background information you may want to know.

China’s Singles’ Day is a made-up festival on November 11th, “11.11”, because the shape of the date can be likened to people who do not have any company. In fact, it is the emergence of e-commerce gives rise to the crazy popularity of the made-up festival. On that day, online shopping companies like Alibaba will get a huge chunk of profits, just like what most American shopping malls usually do for Black Friday.

Given its great success, Alibaba seems to become a powerful rival for the local e-commerce company, Amazon. Through the following infographic, compare the two companies for yourself.

Here’s the full version of this infographic.

How Alibaba Makes Its Big Money

Alibaba Needs to Focus on Moblie Marketing

However, whether the popular China’s Singles’ Day can remain its adorability in the United States is still uncertain. As for the positive facts,though the origins of these made-up festivals, including Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Singles’ Day, vary, they share one simple characteristic — discount. Based on common sense, people will definitely be happy to see more discounts, no matter where the discounts come from. If there’s a new Black-Friday-like festival, people have no reason to refuse it. On the other side, R.J. Hottovy, consumer equity strategist with Morningstar, believes that many obstacles stand in the way of Singles’ Day spreading in the U.S. 

Read more from:

BBC News: Alibaba exceeds its expectation;  Wall Street Journal: Alibaba Establishes Singles' Day Record; Market Watch: Bigger than Black Friday.

Reach Jianyu Zhao here.