阿里巴巴只赚了150亿美元在Singl 20小时es' Day. Here's Everything You Need to Know.A look at the giant ecommerce spectacle, by the numbers.

ByNina Zipkin

VCG | Getty Images

Over the course of seven years, Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba took a 23-year-old holiday celebrating singlehood and turned it into the biggest shopping day of the year.

Singles' Day, a celebration of simply being single, is held in China on Nov. 11 (the date is all ones, get it?). Theholidaywas started by college students at Nanjing University in 1993, but in 2009, Alibaba, theworld'slargest retailer, decided to take advantage and started offering online deals to coincide with the holiday.

This year's sales have already broken last year's record, bringing in $15 billion 20 hours intothe day-long event, with final salesexpectedto be around $20 billion. By 1 a.m. in China,mobilepurchases accounted for 84 percent of all sales. And the company reports that the top U.S.-based brands have been Apple, Nike, New Balance, Playboy and Skechers. And don't think that Alibaba's customers are limited only to China. The companyreportedthat approaching midnight EST on Nov. 10, the United States was number one in sales to China.

Related:How Jack Ma Overcame His 7 Biggest Failures

For the first time this year, companies such as Apple and Target wereavailableto customers on Tmall, Alibaba's massive online store, joining brands such as Gap, Starbucks, Costco, Macy's and Zara.

The company brought in $7 million during the first Singles' Day sales event in 2009, which included27 merchants. In 2014, consumers spent $9.3 billion on Nov. 11. It took only 12 hours to surpass that figure in 2015 -- the final tally for 2015's sales was a whopping $14.3 billion. Thirty-thousand brands from 25 different countries sold items on Alibaba's multiple online marketplaces and120,000 orderswere made every minute last year. Singles' Daysaleswere three times more than Cyber Monday and Black Friday combined in 2015.

Related:Alibaba Expects to Nearly Double Transactions Volume to More Than $900 Billion by 2020

通过阿里巴巴购买,它的企业up80 percentof China's online sales. The company has also trademarked the phrase Double 11. Last year, Alibaba held a three-hour television special called the Tmall Double-11 Night Carnival that featured big name stars such as Kevin Spacey andJames BondactorDaniel Craig.

This year's extravaganza included NBA star Kobe Bryant and Victoria and David Beckham, a fashion show and virtual realityshoppingexperiences.

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Nina Zipkin

Entrepreneur Staff

Staff Writer. Covers leadership, media, technology and culture.

Nina Zipkin is a staff writer at Entrepreneur.com. She frequently covers leadership, media, tech, startups, culture and workplace trends.

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