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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba set a new sales record on Singles Day, the world’s largest 24-hour shopping event. Gross merchandise value (GMV), a figure that shows sales across Alibaba’s various shopping platforms, surpassed last year’s 213,5 billion yuan record (nearly $30,5 billion) yesterday afternoon, and kept rising through the rest of the day.

It was the 11th edition of the annual Singles Day event — also called the Double 11 shopping festival because it falls on November 11. During the 24-hour period, which began at midnight in Singapore and Hong Kong, Alibaba offered huge discounts across its e-commerce sites such as Tmall. Alibaba’s Singles Day sales last year exceeded the spending by consumers during any single US shopping holiday such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. To help boost sales, Alibaba expanded the number of discounted items available in this year’s event and put a heavy emphasis on livestreaming via its platforms to help sell goods. Live streaming has become a big part of the shopping experience on Chinese e-commerce sites. — CNBC.