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Alibaba sets new record with $17.79b in transactions during one-day global shopping festival
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A big screen shows the one-day sales figure during Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group's 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, dubbed the world's biggest shopping event, drawing 120.7 billion yuan (US$17.79 billion) on Friday, setting a new record. (JP/Esther Samboh/JP/Esther Samboh)
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hinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has set a new record with its one-day 11.11 Global Shopping Festival online sales event, dubbed the world's largest shopping event, after recording 120.7 billion yuan (US$17.79 billion) in transactions on Friday.
The company booked 90.2 billion yuan ($14.3 billion) in sales last year in the same event, widely known as Singles Day. Alibaba Group aims to emphasize its globalization strategies this year.
More than 200 countries and regions participated in the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, which involved 11,000 brands, including international first-timers such as Apple, Sephora, Target, Shanghai Disneyland and Victoria's Secret.
"It's our achievement of becoming more and more global," Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang said right after the event wrapped at midnight on Saturday in Shenzhen, China.
More than 47 million users purchased international brands from many different countries, Zhang said. "Behind this growth is our solid step forward in our global drive," he added.
Around 81.8 percent of transactions were carried out online during the shopping fair, with up to 175,000 orders placed per second, data from Alibaba shows.
This year, international celebrities, from British power couple David and Victoria Beckham to US pop band One Republic to basketball player Kobe Bryant and Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson visited China to kick-start the festival on Thursday in a Hollywood-style live broadcast gala filled with interactive games.
