BEIJING — China's Singles' Day shopping festival reached its climax on Wednesday, with Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall and rival JD.com running a promotion that began in mid-October. Both companies again declined to publish a total gross merchandise value. The festival, known in China as Double 11, remains the world's largest annual retail event.

Alibaba stopped disclosing headline Singles' Day sales in 2022, and JD.com followed the same approach. Instead, the platforms reported the number of brands whose sales passed 100 million yuan and growth in specific categories. Beijing-based data consultancy Syntun, which tracks sales across the main e-commerce sites, has become the most widely cited source for industry-wide totals.

This year's event leaned heavily on artificial intelligence. Alibaba promoted shopping assistants built on its Qwen models, which compared prices and assembled discounts for buyers across Taobao and Tmall. JD.com highlighted AI-generated product guides and same-day delivery, while Pinduoduo and Douyin ran parallel promotions to compete for price-conscious shoppers.

Government support also shaped spending patterns. The consumer goods trade-in programme, backed by the Ministry of Commerce, subsidised purchases of home appliances, smartphones and electronics, and platforms reported strong demand in those categories. Analysts at research firms monitoring Chinese retail noted that the extended festival spread spending over several weeks rather than concentrating it on a single day.

The muted reporting reflects a broader shift in Chinese consumption, as households remain cautious amid a weak property market and slow wage growth. Beijing has made boosting domestic demand a central economic priority. Retailers now treat Singles' Day less as a one-day spectacle and more as the start of the year-end shopping season leading into Lunar New Year.