China Spent $1 Billion in 8 Minutes

Chinese online retail giant Alibaba has smashed sales records with Singles Day, the world’s biggest online shopping event. Here are some of the mind-boggling figures from the day’s shopping frenzy.

For Westerners, the site is nowhere near as ubiquitous as Amazon or eBay but in China Alibaba dwarves its American counterparts when it comes to one-day online sales.Singles Day, an annual online shopping day in China similar to Cyber Monday in the US, has exploded in popularity since 2009. Held on 11 November each year, it draws its name from the "bare sticks" represented by the the four number ones in the date. Last year shoppers spent $9.3bn in one day. This year, Singles Day has eclipsed that amount by $5bn.

Read figures below;

8 Minutes - Time taken for shoppers to spend $1 Billion

$14.3 Billion - Total spent in 24hours on Alibaba.com

45 Million - The Peak number of shoppers online at one time during Singles Day