China Singles Day sees shoppers spend US$5.7bn
November 11 - or 11.11 - was proclaimed as "singles' day" because of the number of ones in the date, with sellers promoting discounts to the nation's singles as well as price-sensitive buyers. It is now China's busiest shopping day.
Consumers snapped up everything from mobile phones and cars to diamond rings, reports said.
They spent 35.0 billion yuan on Tmall and Taobao, the two shopping platforms of Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba. "The spending spree was 83% higher than last year," the company said in a statement.
Final sales figures not out yet
The figure was was more than 10 times higher than the average daily turnover on the two virtual marketplaces last year, according to a research report cited by Chinese media.
"More than 402m users visited the two sites on Monday (11 November), double last year's number," Alibaba added.
"It was crazy buying stuff on Taobao during 11.11 -- just like picking up things for free," said a user on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter.
Sales figures from other retailers are yet to be announced, but analysts estimated the combined value of transactions on the country's top 10 operators would exceed 80bn yuan, the state-run Economic Information Daily reported.
The best selling items included mobile phones, insurance policies, sweaters and underwear. Reports said that one car retailer had sold more than 13,000 cars worth two billion yuan by Monday afternoon.
According to the official Xinhua news agency, a woman identified only by her surname Huang paid 5m yuan as a deposit at a Tmall store for a 13.3-carat diamond ring with a 20.5m yuan price tag.
Source: AFP via I-Net Bridge