HANGZHOU, Zhejiang Province -- China's "Singles' Day" online shopping events ended at midnight on Thursday with two major Chinese e-commerce companies contributing to more than 12 trillion yen in sales.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. topped 498.2 billion yuan (7.9 trillion yen) from Nov. 1 through Wednesday, followed by JD.com Inc. with 271.5 billion yuan.
The Singles' Day shopping event, called Double Eleven in China, was first launched by Alibaba in 2009.
Though Alibaba's sales happened only on Nov. 11, it extended the period for this year starting Nov.1. The e-commerce giant's accumulated transaction volume for the 11-day period surpassed last year's total hitting a record 268.4 billion yuan in sales.
In addition to attracting the so-called "nesting consumption" following the spread of the novel coronavirus, the shopping spree on foreign brands had by consumers, who had to give up traveling abroad, also boosted the overall volume, observers said.
However, there are persistent concerns that demand was brought forward with the Singles' Day events, which could affect sales at brick-and-mortar shops, they said.
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