CRI听力:Alibaba Breaks 11.11 Sales Record With 14 Billion USD

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba saw record breaking sales of more than 90 billion yuan, or 14 billion US dollars, on the just concluded Singles Day on Wednesday.

That number is a 60% increase from last year. The company's payment service Alipay processed 117 million transactions during the first hour on Wednesday.

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma hopes to spread China's online shopping fever to the rest of the world.
"11/11, this day starts from China and will go global. And I think in the next five years, we may be in Tokyo, we may be in Paris and maybe we are in New York. We hope 11/11 is a great day for every consumer, every small business for every business who are on the internet age."

Alibaba stats show this year's orders were placed from 232 countries and regions.

The company's chief rival JD.com saw 20 million online orders by 5:30 pm on Wednesday.

Early figures on Wednesday showed around 70% of the sales were made via mobile platforms. Food items saw a strong increase in popularity, while televisions were a favorite among rural buyers.

November 11 became known as the Singles Day in China in the 90's, created by young singles as an excuse to buy themselves presents. Alibaba launched its first Double 11 online sales in 2009, and since then the day has become the biggest online shopping spree of the year in China.

In comparison, Americans spent just 1.5 billion dollars online on last year's Black Friday, the Friday before Thanksgiving – one of the biggest sales days of the year stateside.

For more on this year's double 11 shopping spree, CRI's Wang Mengzhen earlier spoke with Professor Liu Baocheng, from the University of International Business and Economics.