JD.com's Singles Day shopping sales rise 50% from a year ago

Chinese e-commerce giant takes 127.1bn yuan in retailing world's biggest event

JD started its sales event on Nov. 1, to reduce delivery bottlenecks and to give users more time to make their purchasing decisions. HOW HWEE YOUNG/EPA

JD.com, China’s e-commerce giant, said that sales for Singles’ Day - and its run-up - reached 127.1 billion yuan, up 50 per cent from a year ago.

Sales included 11 days of transactions, JD said, unlike its rival Alibaba, which reported on Saturday that its one-day sales reached 168.3bn yuan, up 39 per cent from last year.

Singles’ Day, an annual 24-hour buying frenzy that takes place in China on November 11, has emerged as the world’s biggest shopping event. It exceeds the combined sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the United States.

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JD started its sales event on November 1 to reduce delivery bottlenecks and to give users more time to make their purchasing decisions, it said.

Fresh foods and cosmetics were some of the online retailer's biggest movers, selling 500,000 Thailand black tiger shrimp and 55 million facial masks in the period.

The company also said it sold 500 million yuan of air conditioners in 30 minutes and 100m yuan of televisions in a minute.