TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on Saturday kicked off its ninth edition of the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, its annual sales event. Held on China’s Singles’ Day, which falls on November 11, Alibaba Group Holding Limited’s shopping extravaganza is among the largest shopping events in the world.
With promotions and offers from more than 140,000 brands and 15 million product listings, the online event is the most anticipated one in the world. A countdown gala to the fest was held on Friday night at the Mercedes Benz-Arena here with the company’s Executive Chairman and founder Jack Ma and other top officials present.
Some of the participating brands in this year’s fest include Adidas, Bose, L’Oreal, Mac, Nike, Siemens, Unilever among others. Started in 2009, the festival grossed about $18 billion during the 24-hour period in 2016, making it about 2.5 times bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday (two of the biggest shopping fests in the US) put together.
