How Alibaba Generated Nigeria’s 2018 Budget in a Day

Hey guys! It’s about 2am this Sunday morning. I had just woken up to edit a blog post when I suddenly came across this and it blew me off. A friend of mine; Otoaye Godfrey, had mentioned on Facebook yesterday that Jack Ma made $1.5 dollars in 2 minutes, but I thought it was an analysis of his average revenue over a period of time. But then somehow, it popped up on some else’s post and I had to check it out. Guess what I saw? 

Yesterday, 11th of November, Alibaba; the world's largest e-commerce business, which owned no single physical shop, made about 25.3 billion US dollars in sales yesterday (a single day). Did you read that well? Let me write in plain language. A company in China, owned by a retired English teacher made sales of 25 billion US Dollars in one-day sales. But in case you did not understand how huge an amount that is, let me tell you what that means in Nigerian currency. At today’s exchange rate of 356 to a dollar, 25 billion dollars translates to N8.9 trillion.

Now how did this happen?

Ten years ago, November 11 was a like any other of Chinese many cultural events, where they celebrate single people in China. But in 2009, Jack Ma and his E-commerce company Alibaba.com turned that day now known as Singles’ Day into the China’s version of Black Friday.

Yesterday, The Verge wrote that sales from the Chinese e-commerce’s one-day event have nearly doubled those from Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the US combined.

Alibaba reported that sales from Singles’ Day amounted to $25.3 billion, a 40 percent jump from last year’s figures. (The number did not take into account some sales that began earlier in the week in honor of the event). Additionally, the retailer hit a record $18 billion in just 13 hours on Saturday, eclipsing last year’s record of $17.8 billion in 24 hours. 

WORLD RECORD SALES!!!

In one 2 minutes period yesterday, Alibaba made $2 billion sales, in another 15 minutes period; $5 billion sales and in the first 13 hours yesterday Alibaba made $18 billion dollars in sales.

I don’t want to bother you with more details; I want to bring this whole analysis home to Nigeria. Let’s look at the coincidences and the differences. 

First, Jack Ma, the owner of Alibaba is 53 years old, that is 4 years younger than Nigeria (counting from independence).

He founded Alibaba.com in April 1999 the same period and year Nigeria came into the current democratic dispensation. 

Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales was introduced in 2009, 10 years after it was founded, and that is 10 years into our current democratic dispensation.

BUT

The amount made by Alibaba yesterday ($25.3) is more than half of Nigeria’s current foreign reserves ($32.7 billion). What a single business owned by a single man, made in a single day, is more than half of what the largest economy in and most important country in Africa has managed to save in 57+ years of independence, or let’s say 18 years of democracy.

That figure is also bigger than both Nigeria’s 2017 budget of N7.3 trillion and the proposed 2018 budget of N8.6 trillion.

So lets Jack Ma decides to give out his one-day sales to Nigeria, that will be sufficient to fund our next year’s budget.

Now Jack Ma is just one out of over one million entrepreneurs in China creating and delivering value to the world and generating revenue for themselves and China. These are glaring facts.

Nigeria needs to pay more attention to entrepreneurship.

In the last 20 years, China has risen from a mediocre country to one of the most powerful nations in the world, owing largely to massive entrepreneurial turn-around. China has done everything to encourage entrepreneurship and technology in their country, and they have done this through inclusiveness; giving opportunities and enabling the environment for their women and youths to thrive. Today there are more than 300 billionaires in China, more than any other country in the world and all of them are self-made. Again 8 out of 10 Self-made female billionaires in the World are from China. This has simply transformed the entire economy of China. And while the rest of the world is targeting 2030 to end poverty, China is targeting to achieve the same goal by 2020. 

Centuries ago, entrepreneurship helped the USA rise and remain the largest economy in the world. In this century and before our very eyes, this same tool (entrepreneurship) is helping China challenge the USA as the world’s largest economy and leveraging her massive population; which the world once saw as a liability, they have done it faster than anyone predicted.

What China has, Nigeria has too; large, smart, strong and youthful population. By 2050 according to very reliable predictions, Nigeria would become the third largest country in the World, behind China and India and ahead of the USA and Russia. Whether you see this as a catastrophic time bomb or a massive opportunity, you are right.

What plans do we have for this massive explosion? 

We cannot as a nation fold our arms and let the future come upon us; which is what we have done in the past 20 years.

In my opinion, our government should borrow a leaf from China and provide solid structures for quality education and entrepreneurship. Nigerians on their part must borrow a leaf from Chinese, embrace education and entrepreneurship and always seek the common good.

WE CANNOT AFFORD TO FAIL THE NEXT GENERATION!!!! 

I would like to know what you think about this article; opinion, suggestions! Please drop a comment below.