'China's Black Friday' Smashes Sales Record

Chinese online retail giant Alibaba smashed records as sales during its annual Singles Day shopping extravaganza hit $14.3bn (£9.4bn) - beating the previous year’s $9.3bn (£6.1bn).

The company said it had surpassed the record by early afternoon while its main rival JD.com had also already overtaken last year's total.

Alibaba turned November 11, or "11.11" into a 24-hour shopping splurge six years ago. It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) was originally designed as a mock celebration for single people not in relationships.

Steep discounts and other promotions on the day are aimed at attracting hordes of shoppers to spend their money online. This year James Bond actor Daniel Craig helped promote the event.

Alibaba said that in the hours leading up to midnight, nearly 130 million users visited the mobile Taobao app

The company saw takings of more than $1bn (£660m) within the first eight minutes of today's extravaganza which kicked off at midnight in China. By early afternoon the total had surpassed $10bn (£6.6bn).

Chief executive Daniel Zhang said parts of this year's event were being tailored to the growth area of mobile retail.

Last year, the company had handled a peak volume of 80,000 orders per second, and this was expected to rise to 120,000 orders per second in 2015.

Mr Zhang said as the event began: "The whole world will witness the power of Chinese consumption this November 11."

Surging retail sales have been a bright spot in China's recent growth story with factory output growth slowing. The stuttering performance overall of the world's second largest economy has prompted global market anxiety in recent months (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) .