An emergent economy in the virtual world is the future, predicts Alibaba chairman Jack Ma as the company on November 11  broke sales record from last year’s Singles’ Day, China’s biggest online shopping day.

Increasingly, a mobile device is the quickest way to connect to the booming internet economy, he adds. Take Singles’ Day. In just 20 hours into the event, mobile payment comprised 82% of the day’s gross merchandise volume (GMV). Mobile devices drive repeat purchases and turn sales faster than desktop computers.

“There will be a virtual economy on the internet. All the young people, the SMEs, the businesses can leverage the sector to do global buying and global selling,” says Ma.

The percentage of mobile payment for the singles’ event over the last four years has grown nearly four-fold from 21% in 2013.

The Singles’ Day provides a glimpse of things to come. More purchases are likely to happen online and on mobile devices. Mobile wallets are increasingly becoming relevant.

Alipay, the third-party payment platform of Alibaba, recorded a peak of 120,000 transactions-per-second, up from last year's 85,900 transactions-per-second and faster than any global online payment system.

Huabei, an online credit card service embedded in Alipay, has gained popularity among Chinese customers that are granted varying credit line depending on their past purchase records. On November 11, Huabei has seen a total of 38 million transactions, more than doubling from last year.

According to Alibaba, there are more active users of Alipay in Russia, the US and Spain than any other foreign country. Currently, customers from more than 200 countries are able to use Alipay on Alibaba’s online platform and 18 major currencies are available.

“You can imagine how our lives are changing,” notes Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang. “Using mobile devices is now part of our lifestyle.”