Dive Brief:

• Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s payments unit, Ant Financial, is bracing for the largest-ever Singles' Day event in China this year, Bloomberg reports. The shopping event, held Nov. 11 each year, was launched into an massive online event by Ma's Alibaba Chinese marketplaces seven years ago.

• Last year, Alibaba brought in more than $14 billion in sales during its “Singles Day” shopping event, easily toppling its 2014 record of $9.3 billion. But the benefits of the event have also since spilled over to Alibaba's rivals: In 2015, American and European brands such as Zara, Macy's, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus used the holiday as an opportunity to bolster sales.

• “We have our partners and employees working around the clock in anticipation of 11/11 this year. We expect and we hope it to be even bigger than last year,” Douglas Feagin, the former Goldman Sachs investment banker who now heads Ant’s international operations, told Bloomberg. “We have many more merchants and products and service available on the platforms, and I can tell you that many are in the advanced stages of planning.”

Dive Insight:

Singles' Day has eclipsed its humble origins as an antidote to Valentine’s Day. Started in true grassroots fashion by university students who didn’t like feeling left out, Singles' Day named after all the “ones” in the date Nov. 11. Since then, Alibaba's Jack Ma has turned the day into one of the biggest shopping events in China. 

Much has been made of a consumer spending slowdown in the country, but it remains healthy by the standards of other economies and is unlikely to get in the way of Alibaba’s blockbuster 24-hour sales event this year.

One trouble spot for Alibaba is that sales of counterfeit items skyrocket during the red-letter event. The Chinese e-commerce giant has struggled to contain sales of faux goods on its sites to the consternation of brands and the U.S. and Chinese governments. 

Alibaba said in June it expects revenues to grow 48% in 2017, thanks in part to its acquisitions of Chinese video site Youku Tudou and Singapore-based e-commerce business Lazada. Excluding those acquisitions, revenue growth is projected to be more than 36% year over year, compared to 33% growth last year, the company said. Alibaba expects gross merchandise volume (GMV) to reach 6 trillion yuan ($912 billion) in fiscal 2020, nearly double the 3.09 trillion yuan reported in fiscal 2016, and that it will almost double its transaction volumes over that time.