Chinese shoppers spent billions of dollars in an annual online shopping event on Saturday.

E-commerce giant Alibaba, the organizer of the Singles' Day, said that sales reached 168-point-two billion yuan or 28-point-three trillion won in the 24-hour shopping festival, up 39 percent from a year ago.

The rise is larger than last year's on-year growth of 32 percent and the sales also exceeds the forecast of 150 billion yuan.

Singles’ Day is China’s version of Black Friday, and falls on November 11 each year.