Alibaba Group
Shopping Festival full-day sales data is shown at the Alibaba Group corporate campus in Xixi District, Hangzhou, China on November 11, 2013
China's
biggest online shopping day of the year ended Monday with a record $5.7 billion in sales for Alibaba Group, the country's top e-retailer.
Alibaba's two shopping platforms, Tmall and Taobao Marketplace, were expecting sales of at least $4.9 billion during the 24-hour online shopping blitz, which is held on Nov. 11 every year. Last year, sales for Alibaba totaled $3.1 billion.
By comparison, U.S. consumers spent $1.5 billion on "Cyber Monday" last year.
The shopping day coincides with a Chinese holiday called "Singles' Day," which started out in the 1990s as a protest to Valentine's Day.
