China’s Singles Day Sales Hit $267 Billion as AI Steals the Show — But Growth Slows to 4.8%

China’s Singles Day shopping festival ended with a new sales record — but the smallest growth in years. Shoppers spent 1.78 trillion yuan, about $267 billion, across China’s biggest online platforms during this year’s festival, according to data provider Syntun. That is 4.8% more than last year, a sharp slowdown from the 14.2% growth recorded in 2025.

The result tells two stories at once. On one hand, Singles Day is still the biggest shopping event on the planet, moving more money in five weeks than most countries spend online in a whole year. On the other, Chinese shoppers are being careful with their money, and even the world’s largest sale cannot escape a weak economy.

Artificial intelligence was the surprise star of this year’s festival. AI gadgets, AI software and even computing credits for using AI tools sold faster than almost anything else, as China’s e-commerce giants turned their shopping apps into AI assistants that help people find, compare and buy products.

Singles Day 2026: The Numbers in Brief

Here is what the figures show:

• Total sales: 1.78 trillion yuan ($267 billion), up 4.8% from last year
• Sales period: 7 October to 11 November 2026
• Last year’s sales: about 1.70 trillion yuan, up 14.2%
• Growth in 2024: 26.6%
• Source of the estimate: Syntun, an independent data provider

The estimate covers sales across the major e-commerce platforms, and it is one of the few overall measures of spending during the festival. That is because Alibaba and JD.com, China’s two biggest online retailers, no longer publish their own headline sales totals. Instead, they highlight results in selected categories, brands and user numbers.

The exchange rate used in the figures is 6.6703 yuan to one US dollar.

What Is Singles Day?

Singles Day began in 2009, when Alibaba turned 11 November — written as 11/11, four ones — into a one-day online shopping event. In China it is known as “Double 11”, or “shuang shi yi”. The date was chosen because the four ones look like single people, and the day was originally a light-hearted celebration for people who are not in a relationship.

Over 18 editions, it has grown into the world’s largest online shopping festival, far bigger than America’s Black Friday or Cyber Monday. What started as a 24-hour sale now stretches over five weeks, with platforms opening their campaigns at different times: Kuaishou started on 7 October, Xiaohongshu on 10 October, JD.com on 12 October, and Alibaba and Douyin on 15 October.

The festival has also changed how it works. Alibaba moved its presales to 8pm back in 2021, so shoppers no longer have to stay up until midnight. JD.com scrapped its presale model entirely in 2023, and now sells goods that are already in stock. The old midnight rush is gone, replaced by a long, slow season of discounts.

AI Takes Centre Stage

The biggest change this year was artificial intelligence. For the first time, AI products were a headline feature of the festival rather than a side note.

JD.com said it sold more than 50 million AI-related products during the promotional period and handled more than 300 million service orders. The total value of sales of AI personal computers, AI workstations, AI cameras, AI glasses and AI recording devices more than doubled compared with last year.

Even more striking was the demand for AI tokens — units of computing power that people buy to use AI models. Searches for “token” on JD.com rose more than 13-fold from the previous period, and sales of large-language-model token packages increased more than tenfold.

Alibaba’s Tmall launched an AI Token Center for the festival, selling consumer token packages from Alibaba Cloud, MiniMax, Moonshot AI and Z.AI. JD.com introduced its own AI token section, bringing together services from DeepSeek, Z.AI and ByteDance’s Volcano Engine.

The trend was already visible before the festival’s final day. Top livestreamer Austin Li, known as China’s “Lipstick King”, sold 100,000 monthly memberships of Alibaba’s QwenWork office AI service within half an hour during a Taobao Live broadcast in early November. Sales of AI token plans from 1 to 20 October had already risen 450% from the previous month, Alibaba said, while sales of AI personal-computer laptops surged more than 300% year-on-year in the first hour of the 11 November checkout period.

The platforms have also built AI into the shopping experience itself. In May, Alibaba connected its Qwen AI model to a catalogue of more than 4 billion products, so shoppers can ask the assistant for help instead of searching by keywords. JD.com has its own assistant, Dongdong, and Douyin has Doubao. These chatbots recommend products, direct shoppers and even complete purchases — though it is not yet clear how much of the extra sales they actually drove, Reuters reported.

Why Growth Slowed to 4.8%

The slowdown is the real story behind the record total. Growth of 4.8% is less than a third of last year’s 14.2%, and far below the 26.6% recorded in 2024.

The reason is simple: Chinese shoppers are cautious. Reuters reported that the festival took place against a backdrop of subdued consumer confidence, as a long property downturn, weak income expectations and worries about jobs weighed on spending.

When house prices fall for years, people feel poorer, even if their salary has not changed. When workers worry about their jobs, they save more and spend less on things they do not need. Discounts help, but they cannot fully fix that mood.

Liu Xingliang, a Beijing-based independent technology analyst, put it plainly: Singles Day “is not as lively as it used to be”, partly because there are now sales and promotions all through the year. “And when a sales event is spread over several weeks, the sense that ‘I have to grab deals tonight’ fades,” he said.

That is the other problem for the festival. When everything is on sale all year, a sale stops feeling special. Platforms now compete with subsidies, low prices, livestreaming and AI shopping tools, but the urgency that once made Singles Day famous has faded.

What Sold Well

Home appliances were the largest product category at last year’s festival, with 266.8 billion yuan in sales, according to Syntun — a sign that shoppers still spend on practical goods for the home when prices fall.

This year, Alibaba highlighted newer brands tied to technology and consumer trends. From 15 to 27 October, 333 brands that had been launched for no more than three years ranked first in their specialist categories. They included Fuzozo, which makes AI companion robots, and Eight Sleep, a Silicon Valley smart-sleep company.

The pattern is clear: shoppers are still buying, but they are choosing practical items, new gadgets and AI products over impulse purchases.

What the Big Platforms Did

Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall and JD.com no longer release headline sales totals, so the full picture comes from Syntun’s estimate. But both companies shared figures from their own corners of the festival.

JD.com’s numbers show how fast AI products are growing: more than 50 million AI-related products sold, AI device sales more than doubled, and token package sales up more than tenfold.

Alibaba’s numbers show a shift towards younger brands. The 333 new brands that topped their categories suggest that shoppers are open to trying new names, especially in technology, when the price is right.

Neither company gave an overall sales figure, continuing a practice that began a few years ago when growth started to slow and the headline number became less flattering.

What It Means for China’s Economy

Singles Day is often read as a health check for the Chinese consumer, and this year’s check-up gives a mixed result.

On the positive side, spending still grew, and it grew to a record total. People are still shopping online in huge numbers, and new categories like AI products are creating fresh demand. The festival also shows that China’s e-commerce machine — its logistics, livestreaming and payment systems — can handle a five-week sale worth $267 billion without breaking down.

On the negative side, the growth rate has fallen sharply for two years in a row. A festival that once grew by more than a quarter in a year now grows by less than 5%. That points to a deeper problem: households are saving rather than spending, and discounts alone cannot change that.

For China’s leaders, the message is that consumer confidence needs more than a shopping festival. The property downturn and job worries that held back spending during Singles Day are the same problems the government has been trying to fix for years.

For the rest of the world, the festival is a reminder of the scale of China’s online market. The $267 billion spent during Singles Day is more than the entire annual online retail sales of most countries. And the rise of AI shopping — chatbots that pick products, token packages sold like mobile phone credit, livestreamers selling AI subscriptions — may show where online shopping is heading everywhere.

The technology world is watching closely. The same AI boom that drove Singles Day sales is reshaping the biggest tech companies, including Nvidia, whose chief executive has been in the headlines for very different reasons. Read more: Nvidia Shares Fall as Jensen Huang Admits Affair and FBI Opens Probe — What We Know

China’s appetite for new technology was also visible in another market this autumn: electric vehicle sales bounced back in October, with 2.09 million EVs sold worldwide. Read more: Global Electric Vehicle Sales Bounce Back in October: 2.09 Million EVs Sold as Europe Surges 36%

What Happens Next

The platforms will now count the final results, pay the livestreamers and deliver the parcels — hundreds of millions of them — over the coming days. Then attention will turn to the next test of Chinese spending: the Lunar New Year shopping season early next year.

Analysts will watch three things. First, whether consumer confidence improves as the government rolls out more support for households. Second, whether AI shopping keeps growing, or whether the token boom was a one-off novelty. And third, whether Alibaba and JD.com ever return to publishing headline sales figures — or whether the Syntun estimate remains the only public scorecard for the world’s biggest shopping festival.

For now, Singles Day 2026 has set a new record while growing at its slowest pace ever. The festival is still enormous. It is just no longer booming.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much was spent on Singles Day 2026?

Sales reached 1.78 trillion yuan, about $267 billion, across China’s major e-commerce platforms from 7 October to 11 November 2026, according to data provider Syntun. That is 4.8% more than last year.

Why did Singles Day growth slow down?

Growth slowed because Chinese shoppers are cautious. A long property downturn, weak income expectations and job worries have reduced spending. There are also sales all year now, so the festival feels less special than it once did.

What is Singles Day?

Singles Day, or Double 11, is China’s biggest online shopping festival. It started in 2009 when Alibaba turned 11 November into a one-day sale. It now runs for about five weeks across platforms such as Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall, JD.com, Douyin and Kuaishou.

What were AI tokens, the surprise hit of the festival?

AI tokens are units of computing power that people buy to use AI models. Alibaba and JD.com sold token packages from companies including Alibaba Cloud, DeepSeek, MiniMax, Moonshot AI, Z.AI and ByteDance’s Volcano Engine. Sales of large-language-model token packages on JD.com rose more than tenfold, and searches for “token” rose more than 13-fold.

Why don’t Alibaba and JD.com publish their sales totals any more?

Both companies stopped releasing headline sales figures a few years ago. They now highlight results in selected categories, brands and user numbers instead, so the overall figure comes from independent data provider Syntun.

Conclusion

Singles Day 2026 broke its own sales record, reaching $267 billion — but the 4.8% growth rate was the slowest yet, down from 14.2% last year and 26.6% the year before. The festival’s new star was artificial intelligence, with AI gadgets, AI token packages and AI shopping assistants driving some of the fastest-growing sales. Behind the record total, though, is a cautious Chinese consumer, held back by a weak property market and job worries, and a sale that has lost some of its old urgency after stretching from one day into five weeks. Singles Day is still the biggest shopping event in the world. It just no longer grows like it used to.

Sources

• Reuters — China’s Singles Day sales rise 4.8%; AI takes larger role
• Channel News Asia — No more midnight rush: How Singles’ Day is being rebuilt for China’s cautious consumers
• Reuters via Q1019 FM — China’s ‘Lipstick King’ touts AI tokens in first for Singles’ Day festival

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.