Alibaba’s 11.11 Singles’ Day shopping festival has smashed records set by itself last year.

As the clock struck midnight to end 24 continuous hours of online sales, total online sales, measured by the Gross Merchandising Volume (GMV), stood at USD25.4 billion, or USD25,386,927,848 to be exact.

The GMV hit USD5 billion in 15 minutes, USD8.6 billion within the first hour, and broke last year's record at approximately 1.09pm Saturday.

After a more aggressive marketing approach by Alibaba in Malaysia this year, Malaysians are also paying closer attention to Singles’ Day this year, having access to the festival through local platforms like Lazada.

According to e-commerce service ShopBack Malaysia, Malaysia topped buying activities in Southeast Asia this year, with over 40 orders made per minute.

Malaysians shopped the most right after midnight, with the country’s top spender spending about RM11,000 worth of orders via ShopBack.

Malaysia’s average spending per customer for the Singles’ Day festival is USD24 (around RM101).