Singles' Day 2026 Results: Sales Rise 4.8% as AI Products Take Off

China’s Singles’ Day shopping festival grew much more slowly in 2026. Sales across the country’s major ecommerce platforms rose 4.8% to 1.78 trillion yuan (about $267 billion) between 7 October and 11 November, data provider Syntun said on 12 November, as cautious consumers held back. The strongest growth came from AI: JD.com said it sold more than 50 million AI products during its promotion, and sales of AI token packages rose more than tenfold.

What happened?

Syntun’s estimate, reported by Reuters on Thursday, 12 November 2026, is one of the few measures of total spending during the festival, because the biggest platforms no longer publish one headline number. Growth of 4.8% is far below the 14.2% rise Syntun recorded for the 2025 festival.

On the same day, JD.com published its own results in its corporate newsroom. As of 11:59 p.m. on 11 November, it said, shoppers had bought more than 50 million AI products and placed more than 300 million service orders. JD.com’s promotion ran from 8 p.m. Beijing time on 12 October to 11 November. Alibaba’s Tmall opened pre-sales on 15 October and started its main sale on the evening of 20 October, according to Alibaba.

Why was growth so slow?

Reuters said consumer confidence in China is still weak, held back by a long property slump, poor income expectations and worries about jobs.

The festival itself has also changed. Singles’ Day began as a one-day sale on 11 November and has grown into a promotion season lasting about five weeks. Platforms now compete with subsidies, low prices, livestreams and AI shopping assistants. Liu Xingliang, an independent technology analyst in Beijing, told Reuters that China now has many more sales throughout the year. When an event stretches over weeks, he said, “the sense that ‘I have to grab deals tonight’ fades.”

Key details: what JD.com reported

JD.com did not give a total sales figure, but it shared a long list of category numbers:

• AI devices: Transaction value for AI PCs, AI workstations, AI cameras, AI glasses and AI recording devices more than doubled from a year earlier.
• AI tokens: Searches for “token” rose more than 13 times compared with the previous period, and sales of large language model token packages rose more than tenfold. JD.com sold token and software subscriptions from JINGDONG Cloud, DeepSeek, Zhipu, ByteDance Seed, MiniMax, Kimi and Alibaba’s Qwen.
• AI shopping help: JD.com’s AI shopping consultation feature reached nearly 80 million active users, up more than 200% year on year, and its Oxygen TryOn virtual try-on tool now covers more than 70 million products.
• Services: Multi-visit home cleaning packages rose more than 550% in transaction value, car maintenance orders rose 167% and moving service orders rose nearly 300%.
• Big brands: Haier, Midea, Hisense, TCL, Gree, Xiaomi and Roborock each passed 1 billion yuan (about $150 million) in transaction value on JD.com.
• Instant retail: Transaction value at JD NOW, its fast delivery service, rose 42%.
• Europe: On Joybuy, JD.com’s European shopping site, home appliance transaction value rose more than nine times year on year.

What did Alibaba say?

Alibaba also skipped a headline sales total. It focused on newer brands instead: between 15 and 27 October, 333 brands launched within the last three years ranked first in their specialist categories on its platforms, Reuters reported. Examples included Fuzozo, a maker of AI companion robots, and Silicon Valley sleep technology company Eight Sleep.

Before the festival, Alibaba said about one million brands and more than 70 million products were taking part on Tmall, and that its Qwen AI assistant was built into the Taobao shopping experience for 11.11. It can compare products, offer virtual try-ons and help users pick promotions.

Why it matters

Singles’ Day is still the world’s largest shopping event, so its results are a useful read on Chinese consumer demand. A 4.8% rise shows that spending is still growing, but slowly, even after weeks of discounts.

The festival also shows how quickly AI is becoming part of online shopping. AI token packages, the prepaid credits people use to run AI chatbots, were a new category this year, as we reported in our preview of Singles’ Day AI token sales. Reuters noted, however, that it is unclear how much AI chatbots, which can now recommend and even complete purchases, actually added to total sales.

What happens next?

Investors will get a closer look soon. JD.com will report its third-quarter 2026 results on Tuesday, 17 November, before the US market opens, with a call at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time. That report covers July to September, so Singles’ Day will mainly show up in its fourth-quarter numbers.

The attention now moves to the US, where Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are about to begin. Amazon’s 12-day event runs from 19 to 30 November, as covered in our Amazon Black Friday 2026 guide.