Singles’ Day just set another sales record. A festival where in China where people have the chance to show their pride in being single, it’s turned into a huge day for online shopping and it has gained more and more momentum in recent years. This year, Alibaba announced that its gross merchandise volume (dollar value of total transactions) reached a record $30.8 billion.

Last year’s $25 billion total was beaten after just 15 hours and 49 minutes yesterday. Despite the impressive total for 2018, Single’s Day has actually lost momentum with the annual growth rate declining from 36 percent in 2017 to 27 percent this year. The slight slowdown can probably be attributed to slowing economic growth in China and increased competition among the country’s online retailers. Single’s Day remains a mammoth event, dwarfing Cyber Monday and Black Friday in the United States. The following infographic compares Alibaba’s GMV on Singles’ Day with total e-commerce sales on Cyber Monday and Black Friday last year. The Chinese shopping extravaganza is nearly three times as big as Thanksgiving weekend.

source: statista