Alibaba staffers applaud as sales reached about 120.7 billion yuan ($17.79 billion) on Singles Day shopping festival. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Similar to Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the US and the UK, Singles Day has grown into the world's largest online shopping event with the participation of not only e-commerce players, but also brick-and-mortar retailers. Alibaba's sales volume accounts for a bulk of the total sales on Singles Day.

The event has become a celebration of consumption for urban residents and more and more for those who live in rural China.

The rising penetration rate of smartphones in China has fueled the growth in Singles Day. About 82 percent of this year's transactions were completed using mobile devices, a significant increase from 68.67 percent recorded last year, according to Alibaba.

The increasingly convenient internet consumer-finance services in China have helped more people to shrug off concerns about shopping as they can afford more purchases by borrowing small loans.

By 5 pm on Friday, about 21 percent of the Nov 11 shopping purchases were paid by Ant Check Later, an online consumer finance service provided by Ant Financial Services Group.