(Yicai Global) June 19 -- This year's '618' mid-year online shopping festival was a success, according to China’s leading e-commerce platforms, though Alibaba’s Taobao Tmall Commerce Group, JD.Com, and Pinduoduo released only limited data.

This year's 618 exceeded expectations and set a new record, Beijing-based JD said, without disclosing any specific figures, such as transaction volumes or sales growth.

The shopping festival around June 18, or 618, is among the biggest in China every year. It was first started in 2010 by JD. This year it ran from late last month through yesterday.

JD was the most popular e-commerce site during the event, as more than 60 percent of shoppers chose to buy items on the platform, according to consulting firm Kantar. About 30 percent shopped on Taobao and Tmall.

More Taobao and Tmall vendors took part in the event than in previous years, said Liu Bo, public relations president of Alibaba's digital marketing platform Alimama Market. As of yesterday, sales of nearly 2.6 million small and mid-sized stores exceeded that of the same period of 2022, and the number of brands with sales over CNY100 million (USD15.6 million) reached 305, Liu noted.

The number of orders Pinduoduo received during the shopping festival exceeded 1.1 billion as of yesterday, up over four-fold from a year earlier, it said. Nearly 70 percent of orders came from third- and lower-tier cities.

Customer traffic at Suning.Com's stores increased more than 200 percent during '618' compared with last year's festival, with orders for home appliances and home decorations doubling. Orders for products priced at more than CNY50,000 (USD7,800) jumped 153 percent.

E-commerce competition will get more intense this year, a UBS analyst told Yicai Global. Although e-commerce platforms generally maintained disciplined subsidies and marketing, many announced plans to increase investment from the second quarter, the analyst added, noting that the plans have smaller investment cycles than in past years due to slower market growth.

Editor: Futura Costaglione