Photo: VCG

China's e-commerce sales set new records, with transactions on Alibaba's Tmall - as of 4:31 pm Beijing time on Monday - exceeding the full-day reading for last year. Orders made on JD.com hit nearly 180 billion yuan by 2:37 pm.

Inversely, Chinese mainland stocks suffered losses across the board, with more than 90 percent of the 3,700-some listings ending lower.  

A shares retreated amid a continuing struggle at key resistance levels on Monday. The flagship Shanghai Composite index shed 1.83 percent to finish at 2,909.97 points, the Shenzhen Component index lost 2.17 percent to 9,680.57 points, and the ChiNext index tumbled 2.23 percent to 1,673.13 points.