Unusually low-key start to Singles Day shopping gala

No star-studded stages. No glamorous countdowns. No sales figures published…yet. This year's Nov 11 shopping festival has been exceptionally low key compared to previous editions.

In an unusual move, Alibaba Group, which coined the gala 12 years ago, did not disclose the gross merchandise volume it has recorded since the event kicked off in the middle of the night.

That's a sharp contrast to previous editions, where the e-commerce giant kept refreshing records of the time span it took to reach sales landmarks -- 1 billion yuan ($156.1 million), 10 billion yuan, or breaking the total sales registered in the previous year.

Last year, the figure reached a staggering 498.2 billion yuan.

It did however hone its focus on the performance of smaller and medium-sized brands, saying they have "leapfrogged" in sales.

In the first 45 minutes of the gala, some 411 smaller brands reported a gross merchandise volume of over 10 million yuan, with 40 of them even topping the 100 million yuan threshold, according to data from Tmall, Alibaba's business-to-customer site.

In the same time frame, a total of 382 brands saw transactions surpass 100 million yuan, including domestic brands Huawei, Erke, as well as international labels Apple and L'Oreal.

Over at JD, another leading e-commerce platform, promotions started from 8 pm on Wednesday. Also refraining from sharing sales figures, the company listed the top five categories by sales: mobile phones, refrigerators, flat-screen TVs, washing machines and air conditioners.

It also emphasized the miraculous performance of brands of small and medium-sized enterprises, saying smaller labels new to the gala quadrupled sales compared with a year ago.