Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba  has smashed its own record for the Singles Day shopping bonanza set just one year ago. It generated $14.3 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) settled through its payment affiliate Alipay, a 60% rise compared with last year, according to unaudited company figures.
Mobile GMV, which stood at $9.8 billion, accounted for 68.7% of the total GMV.
Introducing international products is the top theme of this year’s Singles Day, a Chinese Internet meme mocking people not in relationships that Alibaba  turned into a shopping holiday in 2009.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma appeared on the stage of the Nov. 10 Singles Day gala. Shoppers spent nearly $8 billion in the first 10 hours of this year’s shopping bonanza (Photo credit : Getty Images)
According to Alibaba, one in three consumers purchased products from more than 16,000 international brands that participated in this year’s event. The top countries selling to China on the companies’ platforms are the United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Australia.
The most popular items from foreign brands included baby and nutritional products as well as clothing and footwear from Nike NKE -2.36% and Levi’s, according to the company.
Alibaba this year kicked off the discount day with a four-hour gala that featured top Chinese celebrities alongside James Bond’s Daniel Craig and a cameo from Kevin Spacey, who wished Chinese consumers a happy shopping experience as “President Underwood” from the television series House of Cards.“This day demonstrates the power of domestic China consumption, and the Chinese consumer’s strong demand for international products,”  Daniel Zhang, chief executive of Alibaba Group, said in a statement.
Chinese provinces and cities that are spending the most are Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing.
Before the start of the shopping festival, e-commerce vendors in the province of Guangdong lined up to kneel before a portrait of Alibaba founder Jack Ma, a ritual they initiated last year to pray for good fortune on Singles Day.