Alibaba Singles Day sales

Objects launched into Earth orbit per year and Alibaba's Singles Day sales have, between 2015 and 2021, risen together at a correlation of 0.978. The suggestion that Chinese e-commerce is somehow accelerating the orbital economy is almost plausible until you remember that the two are, geographically and operationally, nowhere near each other. The satellites and the discount codes are, however, both very enthusiastic.

Annual orbital launches grew from around 90 in 2015 to over 180 by 2022, driven by SpaceX and its global constellation customers. Alibaba's Singles Day sales exploded from about $14 billion in 2015 to over $84 billion in 2021 before the Chinese e-commerce growth moderated. Both trends are expressions of the same decade of industrial scale-out, one in aerospace hardware and one in retail logistics. The shared variable is the decade's unprecedented compounding: cheaper rockets, cheaper delivery, more things moving through more systems each year.

Seven years of two lines climbing together can describe two parallel engineering triumphs in completely separate domains. The rocket and the promotion engine are both faster than they used to be. Neither is in the other's supply chain.