Alibaba's Singles' Day sales hit $38 bn to beat Amazon, but growth sales

Singles' Day is a gauge of Chinese consumer sentiment and also a shop window for Alibaba as it plans sale of $15 bn worth of shares.

Chinese retailer Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's sales for its 24-hour Singles' Day shopping blitz hit a record $38.4 billion, more than US rival Amazon.com Inc's haul last quarter from online store sales.

But sales growth for the annual shopping festival eased to 26 per cent, the weakest since the event started in 2009, held back by a slowing e-commerce industry in China as the country's economic expansion heads toward a historic low.

The event, a gauge of Chinese consumer sentiment, has also become a shop window this year for Alibaba as it plans to sell $15 billion worth of shares in Hong