The Chinese e-commerce giant’s annual Singles’ Day shopping blitz on Monday brought in a record 268.4 billion yuan (US$38.38 billion) in sales, more than six times the amount of online sales made in the US on Black Friday last year. Citic Securities Co (中信證券) had predicted a 20 to 25 percent expansion, while Daiwa Capital Markets Inc had an estimate of 23 percent. “I think this year especially, people were kind of waiting for Singles’ Day and kind of waiting to make some of those medium-sized purchases that they didn’t want to pay full price for,” he said. “I saw them selling electronic toothbrushes at 9.9 yuan, and 65-inch TV sets at 1,800 yuan. People in lower-tier cities and towns can afford these products and in fact, they like big TVs more than city people, because they usually have larger houses,” Liu said.

Source: Taipei Times November 12, 2019 16:03 UTC