Surging sales

Major e-commerce platforms have increased their efforts this year to attract price-conscious shoppers amid the country's drive to boost consumption, which includes the expansion of the consumer goods trade-in program.

While final sales figures are not yet in, there are early indications that this year's 618 festival will deliver a big bump to consumption and the domestic economy.

In the first hour of the festival, which started at 8 pm on May 16, sales of 43 brands surpassed 100 million yuan ($13.9 million), data from Tmall, Alibaba's business-to-customer platform, showed. More than 13,000 brands saw their sales double during this brief period.

Within just 20 minutes of the shopping gala's start, turnover of Apple products on the platform exceeded that of the entire opening day last year, fueled by subsidies provided by the government and the platform.

As of May 30, a total of 217 brands had seen their festival sales exceed 100 million yuan, Tmall said.

The turnover of home appliances, mobile phones and digital products participating in the trade-in program had increased 283 percent compared with last November's Singles' Day festival, another massive shopping promotion.

The overall sales of home appliances, home furnishings and decorations, and electronic gadgets, registered double-digit year-on-year growth for the period to May 30, Tmall said.

The transaction volume of Apple, Xiaomi, Midea, Huawei and Haier each surpassed 100 million yuan within the first hour of the promotion, while the sales of more than 10,000 popular electronic devices such as gaming laptops, high-end earphones and intelligent robots skyrocketed over tenfold year-on-year.