JD.com's promotional material of '618' shopping gala Photo: VCG

Major Chinese e-commerce platforms including JD.com and Taobao have reported brisk sales during this year's 618 mid-year promotion gala, with domestic brands, summery items and consumer electronics sales going through the roof amid a record level of subsidies.

As the first major online shopping festival since China optimized its epidemic response, the sales data is closely watched as China's consumption recovery softened to a certain extent in May. 

Yet the data on Sunday showed that China's consumption growth will remain robust while showing signs of a continuous structural upgrade, observers said. Platforms also highlighted support for the real economy this year.

Domestic leading e-commerce platform JD.com, which initiated the mid-year promotional event 20 years ago, said as the festival enters its climax, some 30 percent of domestic brands reported sales increases of more than 100 percent compared with a year earlier in the first 10 minutes of Sunday. The company's cloud service is witnessing a surge in user visits by 119 percent year-on-year, underlining the strong consumer atmosphere.

On Alibaba's e-commerce marketplace Tmall, a total of 305 brands saw sales hit the 100 million yuan ($14.03 million) mark in the wee hours of Sunday. Moreover, a fleet of 2.56 million small and medium-sized vendors had seen their sales revenues surpass the levels of 2022 as of Sunday. 

Another 1.18 million smaller vendors, including 680,000 whose cooperation with the Tmall platform is less than three months old, realized sales of over 10,000 yuan.

Tmall said in an emailed statement to the Global Times that 5 million new vendors had come to its platform so far this year, with the past few months seeing an accelerated pace. In the past year, more young people had opened shops on its platforms, and the number of those who were younger than 23 reached 1.3 million.

The 618 shopping spree is an important window in which to observe new consumption trends, and also a barometer of China's consumer market

Retail sales jumped 12.7 percent year-on-year to 3.78 trillion yuan in May, slowing 5.7 percentage points from April.

Yi Beichen, a veteran mobile internet observer, told the Global Times on Sunday that this year's 618 shopping spree is marked by price competitiveness and a more conspicuous positive effect on the real economy. Consumer spending is also seeing an upgrade as health-related spending witnesses a considerable lift.

Products by domestic brands and products made in rural areas of China are being received better, Yi noted. Meanwhile, cross-border consumption has also seen great results.

According to JD.com, 325 international brands saw their sales double from last year during the first 10 minutes of Sunday. Products such as sun protection cosmetics and apparel, wine from Cyprus and organic flour from Kazakhstan were among the winners.

It is expected that along with government measures to boost consumption, and a recovery in household earnings amid an improving overall economy, the consumer market will bring forth new growth points and impetus, Yi said. 

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the top economic planning agency, on Friday pledged swift action on policy measures to enhance consumer spending.

The NDRC is expediting policies to reinvigorate and expand consumer spending, aiming to enhance the consumption environment and tap into the services sector's potential, NDRC spokesperson Meng Wei said.