AI token packages debut as new Singles' Day category in China
Singles' Day festival adds AI token packages for the first time, with top livestreamer Austin Li selling 100,000 monthly QwenWork memberships in 30 minutes. Sales of AI token plans surged 450% month-on-month in early October, while AI laptop sales jumped over 300% year-on-year.
The Singles' Day shopping festival in China has introduced a new product category for the first time: computing credits used to access artificial intelligence tools. The launch marks the first time AI token packages have been offered as a significant consumer product during the world's largest shopping festival, originally held on 11 November each year.
Top livestreamer Austin Li, known as the 'Lipstick King' for selling vast volumes of lipstick online, sold 100,000 monthly memberships of Alibaba's QwenWork office AI service within half an hour during a Taobao Live broadcast on Monday, the company said. That is equivalent to about 2 trillion AI tokens, or units of text processed by AI models.
'Chinese consumers are now very accustomed to using AI productivity tools,' said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at tech research firm Omdia. Frequent users can run short of credits, he added, which makes extensive purchases during a sales period 'a very reasonable action'. It was unclear how much the token plans were discounted from normal prices, however.
The livestream was the first sale of AI products by Li. It showcased QwenWork token plans, AI-enabled laptops and workplace devices. Chen Yusen, an Alibaba Group vice president and chief executive of QwenWork, also appeared. Li asked Chen if AI could be used to build a digital avatar of himself to chat with fans around the clock. While AI could not replace Li, Chen responded, he hoped it could handle everyday tasks for users, freeing them to spend time with 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 e-commerce giant said. JD.com has also introduced an AI token section bringing together services from companies including DeepSeek, Z.AI and ByteDance's Volcano Engine.
Sales of AI token plans from 1 October to 20 October soared 450 per cent from the previous month, Alibaba said, while sales of AI personal-computer laptops surged more than 300 per cent year-on-year in the first hour of the 11 November checkout period. Su said the tokens' relatively long expiry periods could spur users to stock up, but warned that rapid changes in AI products may make consumers wary of prepaying for services at risk of being replaced or retired.
Singles' Day, which has run since 2009 in an effort to spur consumer spending, earned total revenue of 1.70 trillion yuan ($255 billion) across platforms last year, according to third party data provider Syntun.