The daily business briefing: November 12, 2018

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1. China's Alibaba breaks Singles Day sales record
2. SAP agrees to acquire Qualtrics for $8 billion
3. Stock futures mixed as oil prices rise
4. Rocket Lab launches its first commercial rocket
5. The Grinch leads the weekend box office with a $66 million debut

published 12 November 2018

1. China's Alibaba breaks Singles Day sales record

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced early Monday that it set another sales record on its Nov. 11 Singles Day promotion, the world's biggest shopping holiday of the year. Alibaba said it sold $30.8 billion worth of goods, easily beating last year's $25.3 billion Singles Day total. Singles Day sales have grown in recent years to exceed those racked up in the U.S. during the whole of Thanksgiving week. Despite the big number, Singles Day sales growth slowed in its 10th year, falling to 27 percent from 39 percent in 2017. Shoppers ordered more than 1 billion packages from 180,000 brands on Alibaba and its affiliated services.

German software giant SAP is acquiring U.S.-based survey software company Qualtrics for $8 billion, SAP said Sunday in a statement. The boards of both companies have approved the all-cash deal. Qualtrics is bigger and growing faster than rival SurveyMonkey, and it is more profitable. The acquisition, which would be SAP's second-biggest ever, will help the company transition away from traditional desktop software, and focus its efforts to improve growth from new cloud services. In October, SAP raised its outlook after reporting a 41 percent jump in quarterly cloud revenue.

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U.S. stock futures were mixed early Monday as oil prices surged. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down by 17 points. Those of the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100 were up a bit, pointing to a slightly higher open. U.S. bond markets are closed for Veterans Day. Oil prices rose by more than 1.5 percent following an announcement by Saudi Arabia that it would cut supply in December. OPEC and allied oil-producing countries could reduce output by as much as 1 million barrels of crude per day to rebalance the market after renewed U.S. sanctions failed to cut Iran's output, Saudi Arabia's energy minister said Monday. Global shares were mixed ahead of economic data that could show impact from the U.S.-China trade war.

Rocket Lab successfully launched its first commercial Electron rocket on Sunday, carrying six satellites toward orbit. The Electron is about a quarter the size of SpaceX's Falcon 9. It was designed to carry 330- to 496-pound cargoes into space. The successful debut immediately established Rocket Lab, a Southern California-based startup founded in 2008, as a dominant force in the fast-growing market for putting small satellites into orbit. Rocket Lab's rivals include Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit, and Vector Launch, founded by former SpaceX team members. They now face intensifying pressure to put their first cargoes into orbit.

Dr. Seuss' The Grinch led the box office with a $66 million haul on its opening weekend, according to studio estimates on Sunday. Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, which opened at the top last week, fell to No. 2 with $31 million, bringing its total to $100 million. The latest take on the 1957 Dr. Seuss Christmas classic, a book that led to a 1966 TV special and later a 2000 live-action film starring Jim Carrey, was made by Illumination, the Universal Pictures animation arm behind The Minions and Despicable Me. The new Grinch film is narrated by Pharrell Williams and provides a backstory about the orphanage upbringing of the Grinch, who is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.