Some other point of view p128 Jul 2017 10:07
21/11/2016 (119264)
Singles Day Winner
This Thursday, November 24, families all across America gather to spend the day stuffing themselves with turkey and cranberry sauce as they celebrate Thanksgiving. Then, as darkness falls, it is off to the Mall to grab a place in the queue for bargains on Black Friday, the nation's biggest spending day of the year, with stores open from midnight and local TV stations lighting up an orgy of consumer abandon and idiocy.
Last year, Black Friday brought sales of $4.5bn. Amazing - yet in China this year they rang up more than $5bn in the first hour on Singles Day, November 11. It is a new festival, devised to encourage single people to treat themselves and celebrate, and has become the planet's biggest online shopping day ever. This year, sales hit a staggering $17.79bn, up from $14.3bn, with Alibaba hosting a four hour show with founder Jack Ma performing magic trick, and the ubiquitous David Beckham and wife on hand to lend a little spice.
They are bickering a bit about the precise figures, returns and such, but by general consent, over 80% of sales was spent using mobile phones, up from maybe 69% a year earlier. The surge in smart phone use in China means mobile is taking over from online. Which brings us somewhere close to BNN Technology (BNN), and will bring us even closer given time.
Among the many beneficiaries of China's internet boom is Xinhua News Agency (XNA), the State-backed agency through which the President speaks to his people. XNA owns 82.5% of Xinhuanet, the online platform of XNA. It floated on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on October 28, with a public offer price of Yuan 27.69. It immediately soared by the daily limit, and kept on soaring until the last few days, when it has eased off, but still trades at Yuan 118.73, a massive premium. As Xinhuanet floated, it raised new money to expand internet services and such and upgrade in a way which will enhance all of the XNA operations.