China retailers expand AI token sales for Singles’ Day shopping festival

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Singles’ Day AI token sales

Highlights

Livestreamer Austin Li sold 100,000 QwenWork monthly memberships, totaling about 2 trillion AI tokens, in 30 minutes during his Singles’ Day Taobao Live event.
From October 1 to October 20, AI token plan sales rose 450% month-on-month, while AI personal-computer laptop sales surged over 300% year-on-year in the Nov. 11 checkout hour.
Alibaba's Tmall and JD.com debuted AI Token Centers, aggregating token packages from providers like Alibaba Cloud, Moonshot AI, MiniMax, and Z.AI for the festival.

AI token packages debut in Singles’ Day promotions

As reported by BusinessWorld Online, citing Alibaba, livestreamer Austin Li sold 100,000 monthly memberships of the company’s QwenWork office AI service within half an hour during a Taobao Live broadcast on Monday. The volume is equivalent to about 2 trillion AI tokens, or units of text processed by AI models.

The sale marks the first time AI token packages are offered as a significant consumer product category during Singles’ Day. Li, widely known as the “Lipstick King” for building a large online following through cosmetics sales, is also making his first sale of AI products, featuring QwenWork token plans, AI-enabled laptops and workplace devices.

Chen Yusen, an Alibaba Group vice president and chief executive of QwenWork, also appears in the livestream. When Li asks whether AI can build a digital avatar of him to chat with fans around the clock, Chen says the technology cannot replace Li but can help users handle routine tasks and free up more time for their families.

Alibaba’s Tmall has launched an AI Token Center for the festival, offering consumer token packages from Alibaba Cloud, MiniMax, Moonshot AI and Z.AI, the company says. JD.com has also introduced an AI token section bringing together services from companies including DeepSeek, Z.AI and ByteDance’s Volcano Engine.

Consumer demand and market implications

Sales of AI token plans from October 1 to October 20 soar 450% from the previous month, according to Alibaba. The company also says sales of AI personal-computer laptops surge more than 300% year-on-year in the first hour of the Nov. 11 checkout period.

Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at tech research firm Omdia, says Chinese consumers are now very accustomed to using AI productivity tools. He says frequent users can run short of credits, making bulk purchases during a major sales period a reasonable choice, especially when token packages carry relatively long expiry periods.

Still, discount levels on the token plans remain unclear, and Su warns that the rapid pace of AI product change may make some consumers cautious about prepaying for services that could later be replaced or withdrawn. Singles’ Day has run since 2009 to boost consumer spending, and generated 1.70 trillion yuan, or about $255 billion, in revenue across platforms last year, according to third-party data provider Syntun.

Our earlier article on Lenovo’s upcoming Tech World event at CES 2027 detailed how the company plans to showcase Hybrid AI innovations spanning consumer devices and enterprise systems. We noted Lenovo’s focus on integrating AI into PCs and broader infrastructure while emphasizing privacy, security, and user data control as AI adoption scales.

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