Souq.com, a major online retail and marketplace platform in the Middle East, said this year's White Friday was a record-breaking milestone in the region's e-commerce sector with 1.2 million items sold between November 23 and 26 across the GCC and Egypt.

More than 1,500 of the world’s leading brands and companies sold their products at unbeatable prices and offered special deals during White Friday 2016 led by partners such as Unilever, Samsung, Mars, P&G, RB, PepsiCo, Hisense, Lenovo, Philips, Kenwood, Redbull, Johnson & Johnson, Henkel, One Plus, Xiaomi, Nivea, Nestle, Moulinex, Sun & Sand Sports, Futtaim Group, Apparel Group, Hokair Group, Landmark Group, Intel, Microsoft, and Redington.

This year, Souq.com confirmed five times more new buyers everyday on the platform with a sales conversion rate at twice the daily average. The sales volume too doubled over last year, said a top official.

"White Friday 2016 marks another record-breaking milestone for the e-commerce in the region," remarked Ronaldo Mouchawar, the co-founder and chief executive of Souq.com.

"Our robust technical backend preparation ensured that despite 10 times more traffic and concurrent users on web as well as the app, our users continued to enjoy seamless online shopping experience," he stated.

According to him, the biggest e-shopping extravaganza in the region saw four items sold per second with 10 times more traffic and sales than the daily average on the website as well as the app.

Mobile commerce continued to be a huge driver for growth, with over 50 per cent of the sales coming from the mobile app.

Also, White Friday 2016 saw a remarkable upsurge in credit card payments at 37 per cent, highlighting the rising trend and consumer shift to online payments, said Mouchawar.

Of the total, 75 per cent of the sales came from the fashion and lifestyle categories, while electronics accounted for 25 per cent of the sales. White Friday 2016 also saw a phenomenal 60,000 units sold from the newly launched ‘Souq Superstore’ - with many FMCG brands selling out within hours – far surpassing expectation, highlighting the trend towards online grocery shopping trend.

"We are particularly proud of the impressive response to our newly launched groceries category ‘Souq Superstore’ and our fashion offerings- with most of the new fashion brands being sold out in no time," he added.-TradeArabia News Service