As China's 618 mid-year shopping festival nears its end, data from major e-commerce platforms on Thursday revealed a surge in consumer activity, with significant growth in online sales and a notable shift toward artificial intelligence (AI)-related products.

On JD.com, a major e-commerce platform, the number of users placing orders for the 618 event more than doubled year-on-year, with more than 2.2 billion orders across its online, on-site and food delivery platforms, the platform said in a statement to the Global Times on Thursday.

During the 618 sales period, the daily active user count on the JD app reached an all-time high. Notably, livestreaming sales on JD.com saw a remarkable increase, with transaction volume up by 285 percent year-on-year, according to the statement.

Alibaba Group's China commerce business Taobao and Tmall Group also announced that it concluded the 618 mid-year shopping festival with strong performance. The company told the Global Times on Thursday that 453 brands surpassed 100 million yuan ($13.91 million) in gross merchandise volume (GMV) over the 618 period.

Brand sales remained resilient, with 453 brands surpassing 100 million yuan in GMV. Brands that surpassed 1 billion yuan in GMV included Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Nike, Adidas, L'Oréal and Lululemon, Alibaba added. GMV is a metric used by e-commerce companies roughly analogous to sales revenue.

The 618 period also saw record participation, with the buyer base growing at a double-digit rate year-on-year, marking an all-time high since the start of the 618 sales event, Alibaba said.

A notable trend during this year's 618 shopping festival was the surge in consumer interest in AI-related products. Searches for products with AI elements increased by more than 120 percent on JD.com's platform. In particular, AI-enabled laptops saw a transaction volume increase of 151 percent year-on-year, highlighting the growing consumer demand for intelligent products.

Another highlight was the showcasing of domestic humanoid robot manufacturers that launched products on JD.com. Prices for these robots ranged from 40,000 yuan to 400,000 yuan.

A Global Times reporter noticed that most of the humanoid robots listed on JD.com were available for pre-order, with estimated shipping times ranging from 20 to 70 days. Notably, Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics' G1 robot had already sold more than 1,000 units on JD.com, according to some online media reports.

Behind the robust sales, AI technology played a significant role in this year's 618 shopping festival, with both JD.com and Tmall leveraging AI tools to reduce operational costs for merchants and promote digital transformation. For example, JD Cloud offered free AI-based marketing products to merchants, and JD digital avatars served more than 13,000 brands. Tmall revealed that its newly launched generative AI tool "Image-to-Video," which began trials in April, had helped merchants create more than 1.5 million promotional videos.

Following more than a month of promotional events aimed at enticing consumers, China's retail sector is expected to see a significant upsurge, Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Despite global trade frictions and economic headwinds, China's consumer market has maintained robust growth, highlighting the vast potential of domestic demand and the strong impetus for an economic recovery, Wang added.

China's consumer spending in May posted its strongest growth in nearly one and one-half years. Retail sales grew 6.4 percent year-on-year in May, accelerating from a rise of 5.1 percent in April and marking the fastest growth since December 2023, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The mid-year promotional campaign played a pivotal role in unleashing domestic demand potential, promoting the recovery of consumption and shoring up the economy, Hu Qimu, a deputy secretary-general of the digital-real economies integration Forum 50, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Emphasizing that consumption has become a major driving force for China's economic growth, Hu observed that major e-commerce platforms have taken a more pragmatic approach and simplified promotions this year, with a key focus on stepping up support for merchants and offering more cost-effective products for consumers.

As overall consumption has picked up in recent months due to the holidays, Hu said that China's consumption market is expected to maintain stable growth, fueled by the consumer goods trade-in program, online shopping festivals, the stable recovery of the economy and gradual increases in household incomes.