Two weeks after China’s massive Double 11 (November 11) or Singles’ Day shopping event, Americans threw their own shopping bonanza, Black Friday. Though the numbers are still coming in, Adobe Analytics estimates that this year’s sales has already exceeded the figure of 3.54 billion US dollars sold during Black Friday last year. 

In what amounts to a consumer holiday, retailers in China and the US have managed to turn shopping into somewhat of a sport. In the US, competition for the best deals can be fierce, and sometimes violent, as people race into stores to start their holiday shopping. China’s Alibaba has in recent years turned the Singles’ Day into a form of entertainment with a performance by Pharrell and a Nicole Kidman cameo during this year’s event. 

Aside from the spectacle, both shopping events are often seen as a pulse on the health of the economy. Volume of sales is often an indicator of consumer confidence, while the types of items purchased can point us toward consumer trends and how comfortable people are with adopting the latest technology. 

As the numbers continue to roll in, we take a look at some of the eye-popping numbers and their significance, from the two big November shopping frenzies:

The two shopping events combined for over 41 billion US dollars in sales. For reference, Germany spent about this same amount on defense last year (35 billion euros, or 41.7 billion US dollars). 

China’s Singles’ Day by far makes up the majority of this 41 billion. The one-day shopping event brought in 38 billion US dollars, breaking the online sales record. Alibaba, by itself, brought in more than 25 million US dollars. 

As of 8:00 pm ET, Black Friday sales in the US had reached 3.54 billion as tracked by Adobe Analytics, a platform that looks at about 80 percent of online transactions from the 100 biggest web retailers in the US. This already breaks last year’s sales of 3.34 billion and for many, is an indicator that the health of the US economy is growing. 

It took a mere three minutes and one second for Alibaba’s Tmall, a platform that allows international and local businesses to set up shops, to reach the 10 million yuan mark, or 1.5 million US dollars. This is half the time it took to get to this number last year (6 minutes, 58 seconds). 

Tmall is home to a large selection of international brands including Nike, L’Oreal and LEGO. Sales from Tmall are part of a greater trend among China’s rising middle-class for higher-quality products. 

Because Black Friday includes a larger number of individual retailers and therefore more fragmented data, there’s not a comparable number for the US. However, Shopify, a software platform that powers online stores, is tracking in real-time sales for its over 500,000 businesses. At its peak, Shopify businesses were raking in over half a million in sales per minute. 

Market research firm GBH Insights reported Friday that Amazon saw "eye-popping" sales, estimating that the tech giant was driving up to 50 percent of all e-commerce sales. The online retailer released their deals early and slashed prices on their AI-powered Echo products and Prime memberships among others. 

The company earlier this year joined the rankings of the world’s richest companies, hitting the half-a-trillion market value mark. 

Similarly, Alibaba’s Tmall accounted for 66 percent of all sales during this year’s Singles’ Day, while Amazon China made up almost two percent of sales in the country. 

While online shopping has taken off in both countries, China’s consumers are much more comfortable making purchases on mobile devices. Alibaba said 90 percent of its Singles’ Day sales were purchased on mobile devices this year, a dramatic increase from the 69 percent recorded in 2015. 

In China, online shopping is mobile shopping, with third party payment systems like Alipay and WeChat wallet being a ubiquitous part of daily life.

In the US, mobile devices are used mostly for browsing, with consumers making the actual purchase in-store or on a desktop. IBM’s Bluemix Analytics panel is finding that about 50 percent of online traffic is coming from mobile devices, but only 34 percent of sales are mobile. This is still up eight percentage points from last year. 

Adobe’s VP of marketing and customer insights Mickey Mericle, attributes this shift to the need for speed, telling TechCrunch that "shoppers looking for discounts are getting better at using smartphones to quickly close the deal, and we are seeing better mobile conversion this season at over 10 percent growth."