Alibaba Singles' Day sales race past $ 10 bn in first hour

It took only an hour for Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba to hit $10 billion in sales for Singles' Day, the company revealed.

In two minutes, Alibaba's gross merchandise volume totalled $1 billion and in the next 40 minutes, the site's sales had surpassed $7.5 billion.

The e-commerce giant said that the first delivery was made in 12 minutes after midnight.

Alibaba hit $5 billion in transactions in less than 15 minutes on Singles Day this year as compare to the cyber shopping event back in 2015, where it took the Chinese e-commerce company a full hour to reach $5 billion in transactions.

According to reports, within the first 30 seconds, 97 percent of sales were generated through mobile devices.

Alibaba also hosted a star-studded gala enlisting tennis star Maria Sharapova and American rapper Pharrell Williams to pump sales, Bloomberg reported.

The e-commerce giant uses the China's Singles' Day into a cybershopping event along the lines of Black Friday in the United States.

China's Singles' Day is an entertaining festival widespread among young Chinese people, to celebrate the fact that they are proud of being single.

This festival has become the largest online shopping day in the world, with Alibaba's sales at US$ 5.8 billion in 2013, US$ 9.3 billion in 2014, US$ 14.3 billion in 2015 and over US$ 17.8 billion last year.