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Alibaba's Singles Day sales set record $74bn with help from livestreaming

Beijing's move to combat internet monopolies clouds tech companies' fortunes

Alibaba Group's Jiang Fan, president of Taobao and Tmall, speaks at the e-commerce company's Singles Day global shopping festival at a media center in Hangzhou on Nov. 12.   © Reuters

HANGZHOU, China/HONG KONG -- Alibaba Group Holdings' Singles Day shopping topped $74 billion in total sales Wednesday, a huge increase from last year's record high that suggests robust consumer health in the world's second-largest economy.

According to data published by Alibaba just after midnight Thursday, buyers had snapped up 498.2 billion yuan ($74 billion) of goods. Even the accumulated transaction volume after the first half-hour surpassed the full sales total of last year's event, when merchants on Alibaba's platforms sold 268.4 billion yuan of items.

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