China: Alibaba smashes Singles Day record with €13 billion sales

Chinese online shoppers spent a staggering 91.2 billion yuan (€13.33 billion, $14.32 billion) on Alibaba products in 24 hours during the Chinese Singles Day Global Shopping Festival, Wednesday. Alibaba executives in Beijing announced one of the biggest single-day results in internet shopping history during a press conference in the Chinese capital. The figure dwarfed the total spent during the 2014 iteration of the festival, which stood at 57.24bn yuan ($8.99bn, €8.36bn). E-commerce giant Alibaba saw 60 percent sales growth on the Chinese commercial holiday, beating last year's record of 57.1bn yuan (€8.35bn; $8.97 bn) before midday local time, as seen in the Hangzhou celebrations. Footage shows Alibaba reaching the 30 billion Yuan mark. Singles Day, held on November 11, is considered the world's largest online shopping day in the international commercial calendar, outstripping both Cyber Monday and Black Friday in online sales.