Alibaba's Big Singles' Day: $1 Billion in Sales in 8 Minutes

China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has passed its record halfway through its Singles’ Day shopping event, NBC News reported.

In the first eight minutes of this year’s sale, the company generated more than $1 billion in sales. Last year, it took 17 minutes to hit that mark.

Alibaba said it hit more than $9.3 billion in gross merchandise volume. It said it surpassed the $2.4 billion sold on Cyber Monday, the largest online sales day in the U.S.

Singles’ Day is known as the world’s largest 24-hour online shopping event, and falls on Nov. 11 every year. It was created in the 1990s as a way to celebrate single life.

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