Alibaba's whopping US$25.3 billion (NZ$36.4b) Singles' Day payout

Alibaba has smashed its record in Singles' Day sales this year. Photo / Supplied

E-commerce giant Alibaba has smashed its Singles' Day record once again with sales topping NZ$36 billion (US$25.3b) in its annual online shopping festival.

Alibaba had predicted it would hit US$21b in sales this year.

Online payment platform Alipay processed more than 1.48 billion payment transactions on Saturday, up more than 40 per cent from the previous year.

"More than US$25 billion of GMV [gross merchandise volume] in one day is not just a sales figure," Alibaba Group chief executive Daniel Zhang said.

"It represents the aspiration for quality consumption of the Chinese consumer, and it reflects how merchants and consumers alike have now fully embraced the integration of online and offline retail."

Last year Alibaba made US$17 billion (NZ$24.5b) in sales from Singles' Day, more than three times the amount made for the US equivalent of Black Friday.

Singles' Day, or 11.11, started as an obscure "anti-Valentine's" celebration for single people in China in the 1990s, and has now become the biggest online shopping day in the world.

On Friday evening Alibaba founder Jack Ma hosted a glitzy countdown gala headlined by US rapper and singer Pharrell Williams, Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi and a string of other celebrities and influencers.

The retail gala, which was watched by more than 400 million people in China last year, is part of Ma's vision for the future of retail - merging entertainment and consumption.

Alibaba rival JD.com made NZ$27.6b (US$19.1b) on Singles' Day, up 50 per cent from last year.