$Apple(AAPL.US)$ so good

There were marvelous statistics on the e-commerce companies from the pre-sales of the upcoming Double-11 shopping extravaganza. However, investors weren't able to get excited. $Alibaba(BABA.US)$ , $JD.com(JD.US)$ , and $PDD Holdings(PDD.US)$ lost 7.0 percent, 5.7 percent, and 10.3 percent respectively.
When Alibaba Group championed the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival in 2009, there were just 27 merchants involved. The e-commerce giant kept expanding the participation and there is a record 290,000 brands taking part this year, making it the largest Festival to date. Alibaba's business-to-consumer online marketplace Tmall is offering more than 14 million deals to over 900 million consumers in China.
This year, a first official wave of sales that will run from November 1 to 3, followed by a second round on November 11, is aimed at alleviating the logistical logjams in the previous years when the majority of the sales happened on a single day. In fact, nearly three-quarters (around US$54 billion) of the total turnover of the Double Eleven Shopping Festival in 2020 was transacted within the first 30 minutes from the launch of the event.
As I shared in the last update, the pre-sales event on October 20 had already delivered outstanding numbers. During a 12-hour marathon live stream, a leading influencer sold about $1.7 billion worth of goods. In other words, a single person sold in half a day more than one-third of the $4.8 billion in sales Amazon (AMZN) as a company achieved over four full days from 2020's Black Friday through Cyber Monday.
JD.com also boasted stellar achievements. Sales in the first four hours (from 8 pm of October 20 to midnight) jumped nearly 40 percent higher (in Chinese) compared to the same period last year. It reported that the top ten categories of the pre-sale orders were computers, home appliances, mobile phones, sports shoes and bags, facial and skincare, kitchen and bathroom appliances, household appliances, photographic equipment, as well as kitchen and sanitary ware.
The expanded range of luxury and designer brands participating - over 200 of them - including Hermes and Saint Laurent for the first time, could spur GMV growth this year. Initial sales figures showed watches, handbags, and jewelry as categories that have particularly enjoyed evident growth.
Due to China's zero-COVID policy, its borders remain tightly controlled to date. Chinese consumers who had previously traveled prolifically and purchased luxury items overseas have to do so domestically.
The lack of travel opportunities has also resulted in consumers looking for different ways to delight themselves and improve their lifestyles according to Janet Wang, the head of Alibaba's Tmall Luxury Division. Hence, more people have turned to online platforms in China, such as Tmall Luxury Pavilion, to shop for luxury goods and seek new experiences.
It's not simply uploading a digital image of the items and expecting shoppers to click and cart out. Wang explained that consumers today "aren't satisfied with just two-dimensional images and texts." Hence, Alibaba Group will leverage 3D technology to enable customers to see the details of the merchandise and its texture from different angles. It will also allow shoppers to use augmented reality [AR] to try on watches, jewelry and shoes.
Tmall Luxury Pavilion, the online platform of Alibaba Group dedicated to the category, will be rolling out a series of online-to-offline events, from pop-up stores to a digital art gallery in the metaverse, held in collaboration with brands including Coach, over the next few weeks.
Given the attention the world paid to Facebook, Inc. (FB) on its name change to Meta Platforms, Inc. (MVRS) to reflect the shift in the company's focus to the metaverse, market players may be keen to see the application by Alibaba Group and perhaps check out BABA stock.
Besides widening the product offerings and tapping on technological advances to increase the appeal of online shopping, Alibaba Group is also making efforts to get the older population on board. Playing on the inclusivity theme, the Taobao app launched a "senior mode" in October aimed at facilitating senior citizens to shop on the platform. Features include larger font and icons, simplified navigation, and voice-assisted technology. Folks who are visually challenged may similarly benefit from these.
Investors weren't buying all these developments as we saw BABA stock losing its gains the previous week. You know sentiment was poor when even further sightings of Jack Ma weren't able to excite the market. After being spotted in Spain, his first overseas trip in nearly a year, he was next found in the Netherlands visiting research institutes to study farm technologies.
With Alibaba co-founder expected to "continue traveling in Europe to visit more companies and research institutions involved in agricultural infrastructure, plant breeding, and the training of expertise in the field," naysayers who had repeatedly claimed Jack Ma was under some sort of physical restraint became silent.
Ma's choice of focus on agriculture is a shrewd one as the Chinese leader had stressed that solving issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers was the top priority for the Communist Party of China. Xi Jinping, also the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and the chairman of the Central Military Commission, had said "efforts must be made to promote the efficiency and quality of the agricultural sector, make rural areas suitable to live and work in and ensure that farmers are affluent and well-off."
We shall see if Ma's endeavors would be duly rewarded. Recall that Pinduoduo's founder Colin Huang had in March resigned as chairman to "pursue research in the food and life sciences, disciplines where breakthroughs could drive the future of China's largest agriculture platform."
In the short term, given that Alibaba Group is expected to report earnings on Friday, investors would be preoccupied with the results release and guidance instead. No thanks to the well-documented headwinds the e-commerce and cloud giant is experiencing, Wall Street analysts have been trimming their EPS estimates for Alibaba.
Even after big cuts in the past months, the EPS estimates continued to be reduced in the last one-month period such that Alibaba Group is projected to post a -27.23 percent year-on-year growth for the fiscal period ending September 2021 (fiscal second-quarter of 2022).
The sharp plunge in EPS growth is supposedly happening even as the revenue is estimated to grow 36.4 percent in the quarter.
Are analysts too bearish? There's a likelihood they are, given that Alibaba delivered earnings surprises on 11 of the past 12 quarterly results. What do you think? Please register your thoughts in the comments section. I'm looking forward to reading them.

Friday, October 22, 2021
By Mia
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