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Katy Perry was a late no-show but Alibaba’s Singles Day was no damp squib, chalking up $1bn of sales in less than five minutes and hitting $9.2bn in the first eight hours as Chinese shoppers snapped up online bargains.
凯蒂.佩里(Katy Perry)没有现身，不过阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的“光棍节”(Singles Day)却没有失败。在中国购物者在网上大举下单之际，阿里巴巴的销售额在不到5分钟时间内就达到10亿美元，并在头8个小时里达到92亿美元。
The event, the biggest in the global retail calendar, was preceded by a musical extravaganza in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen that combined local and international celebrities — including basketball star Kobe Bryant, actress Scarlett Johansson and footballer David Beckham — with adverts and buying opportunities.
在这一全球零售业年历中规模最大的活动揭幕前，阿里巴巴在中国南方城市深圳召开了一场将既有本土和国际名流登场，又包括各种广告和购物机会的歌舞晚会。前来捧场的国际名人包括了篮球明星科比.布莱恩特(Kobe Bryant)、女影星斯嘉丽.约翰森(Scarlett Johansson)和足球运动员大卫.贝克汉姆(David Beckham)。
During the live-streamed show audiences participated in games by shaking, scanning and tapping their phones more than 6.8bn times, Alibaba said.
阿里巴巴表示，直播期间观众通过摇动、扫码及点按手机等方式参与各种游戏互动达68亿次。
Described as Silicon Valley meets Hollywood, the show also supports Alibaba’s belief that shopping among the under-35s, who comprised much of the crowd, must be entertaining as well as efficient.
该演出被形容为硅谷遇上好莱坞。它还证明了阿里巴巴的一个理念：对于组成购物者主体的35岁以下的人们而言，购物不仅要高效，还要有娱乐性。
“In the US if you log on to Amazon, it’s a chore,” said Joe Tsai, Alibaba vice-chairman. “But here in China shopping is entertainment.” Trainers, masks, diapers and lipstick were among the top-selling products when the sale opened at midnight on Thursday, ushering in the graphically symbolic 11/11 Singles Day. Some 12,000 international brands were on sale.
阿里巴巴副董事长蔡崇信(Joe Tsai)表示：“在美国登录亚马逊(Amazon)是件烦人的事，在中国购物则是一种娱乐。”周四午夜，促销活动启动，迎来了因字形而被冠名的“光棍节”。在这轮促销活动中，销量最高的商品包括运动鞋、面膜、尿布及唇膏。大约1.2万种国际品牌参加了这次促销活动。
About 85 per cent of transactions in the first hour were made on mobile devices.
活动开始的头一个小时里，大约85%的交易是在移动设备上下单的。
The company said its Singles Day sale would feature 6m products from 30,000 brands sold by 40,000 merchants.
阿里巴巴表示，参加“光棍节”促销活动的，包括由4万商家销售的共3万个品牌的600万商品。
The festival, which began life as a kind of anti-Valentine’s Day until it was corralled by Alibaba as a totem to consumerism, is much bigger than the US’s Cyber Monday — last year, it was three times as big.
“光棍节”最初是一种反情人节，后来却被阿里巴巴炒作成消费的象征。活动的规模大大超出了美国的超级星期一(Cyber Monday)——去年前者的规模是后者的三倍。
For the first time, Taiwan and Hong Kong — where trams and metro stations were plastered with adverts ahead of “double 11” Singles Day — joined in, marking Alibaba’s first steps to expand the event abroad.
本届“光棍节”台湾和香港也首次参加了这一活动。“双十一”之前，当地电车和地铁站都张贴了相应广告。阿里巴巴此举，是要将该活动向境外推广的初步动作。
However, Alibaba’s numbers — its preferred metric for sales is gross merchandising, which is real time and unaudited — have come under the regulatory spotlight, as have the preponderance of fake goods on its websites.
阿里巴巴喜欢用商品销售总额作为其衡量指标。不过，该公司的数据已引起监管机构的注意，同样被注意到的还有其网站上盛行的假货。
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has queried the numbers, as well as probed how Alibaba accounts for its Cainiao Network logistics unit and its reporting of transactions among its many businesses.
美国证券交易委员会(Securities and Exchange Commission)对这些数据表示怀疑，并调查了其物流部门菜鸟网络(Cainiao Network)的账目及其对旗下众多业务部门间交易的申报。
Chinese regulators have also vowed to tackle any merchant abuses on the day, including “fake discounts” based on ramped-up prices in previous weeks.
中国监管机构也已承诺要处理商家在当天的任何不当行为，包括在之前几周上调价格、再基于上调后的价格打出“虚假折扣”。
Alibaba said it was working with the SEC and stressed that it did not tolerate merchant malpractice on its marketplaces.
阿里巴巴表示正在配合美国证券交易委员会开展调查，并强调不会容忍商家在其网络市场中的不当行为。
