Alibaba's Singles Day sales break $5 billion in an hour

Alibaba's Singles' Day sales surged past last year's 91.2 billion yuan ($13.36 billion) total with nearly nine hours left on the clock, but growth was markedly slower than in 2015 as shoppers sought even bigger price cuts.

A billion dollars in sales in under five minutes, five billion in the first hour and more than 7 billion by 2AM.

Mega-bucks flooded in for Alibaba's Singles Day.

The biggest event on the global e-commerce calendar kicked off in China at the strike of midnight November 11th with massive sales that blew Black Friday and Cyber Monday out of the water.

See what goes into the creation of the global shopping festival:

The 24-hour discount blitz is a major benchmark of Chinese online shopping.

As usual, Alibaba spared no expense on publicity, Kobe Bryant and David Beckham lined up next to CEO Jack Ma in the southern city of Shenzhen.

But disappointment for Katy Perry fans, the pop princess was meant to headline a kick-off concert for Singles Day. But she pulled out on Thursday, saying she had a family emergency and posted an apology in Chinese social media.

Early indications show more than 80 percent of Singles Day shopping is being done on smartphones.