China's Alibaba breaks one-day sales record for Singles Day

BEIJING, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- China's Alibaba, an e-commerce giant rivaling U.S.-based Amazon, broke its own record for sales Wednesday on China's Singles Day.

Singles Day is the country's version of Cyber Monday, which is considered the biggest online shopping day in the United States.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. reached sales of $14.3 billion, a 60 percent increase from last year. By comparison, Cyber Monday sales last year hit $1.35 billion.

Data from Alibaba reported by the BBC showed about 120,000 orders were placed per minute on Singles Day, and that 73 percent of 27 million purchases made in the first hour were done using a mobile device. In total, 68 percent of purchases were made through mobile devices. Additionally, the record for last year - $9.3 billion - was beat in just 12 hours.

Alibaba first promoted the event, initially a mock Chinese celebration to cheer up single people, in 2009. The company told the BBC that more than 40,000 merchants and 30,000 brands worldwide sold goods on Singles Day.

Alibaba's founder, Jack Ma, told USA Today that Singles Day wouldn't succeed in the United States since Veterans Day is celebrated on Nov. 11 and because the First World War also ended on that day in 1918.