(Yicai Global) Nov. 12 -- China's largest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding announced today that its Tmall Double-11 Shopping Global Carnival Season's gross merchandise volume reached CNY498.2 billion (USD75.3 billion) from Nov. 1 to 11, 26 percent higher than last year.

This is the highest growth rate in the past three years, Jiang Fan, president of Tmall said.

Double-11 this year had the largest number of participating merchants ever, with more than 5 million merchants joining in, he added.

During Double-11 on Tmall, there were more than 474 brands with a turnover exceeding CNY100 million (USD15.12 million), he said.

GMV is a calculation of gross revenue based on the total volume in dollars of sales over a given time on an e-commerce site. The retailer multiplies sales price by the number of items sold. Thus, if 10 units sell for USD10 apiece, GMV is USD100.

Double-11, also known as Singles' Day, is said to have started as an anti-Valentine's Day protest by male Chinese college students but has now morphed into the world's greatest display of consumerism. Double-11 denotes the date on which it falls.

Editor: Ben Armour