Chinese shoppers helped Alibaba and JD.com enjoy an impressive Singles Day this Wednesday. The two e-commerce giants both broke company records during the day's promotions.

Alibaba (BABA) - Get Report brought in $14.3 billion in sales, up 60% from $9.3 billion in 2014. It surpassed the total sales that took place in the U.S. on Cyber Monday last year in just 25 minutes.

JD.com (JD) - Get Report surpassed the number of orders it saw on Singles Day last year at 11.58 a.m. China Time. By 6:30 p.m. China Time, JD had received more orders than it did in the past five Singles Days combined. As of the end of the day, JD had processed 32 million orders, up 130% over last year. JD's total GMV for the day was up more than 140% over 2014.

"This year's numbers shows that although Chinese consumers may not be in the mood to buy as many big ticket items as before, they still have money in their pockets," said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan. "Both companies enjoyed huge days. Given the bad news out of China, it was a surprise that consumers smashed records at both companies."

However, it might not be an entirely positive signal of Chinese spending, since all of the spending was discounted. Consumers may have been holding back to save money on Singles Day and that could impact spending for the total financial year.

But focusing on November 11, it was clear that both Alibaba and JD saw a very nice uptick.

Alibaba, especially, spent a lot of energy promoting Singles Day and pulled out all of the stops, with an appearance from James Bond actor Daniel Craig and American Idol singer singer Adam Lambert, plus a video ad from House of Cards' Kevin Spacey, who -- acting as the U.S. president -- encouraged Chinese consumers to spend. The Netflix series has been a big hit in China. 

"Alibaba's numbers are ahead of my expectations, which I chalk up to the company's own promotional efforts as well as participation from a greater number of vendors (including international retailers and consumer brands)," said Morningstar analyst RJ Hottovy. More than 16,000 international brands participated in Singles Day this year.

Unfortunately for Alibaba, though, this wasn't enough to immediately help its stock, which has had a roller-coaster year. Shares of Alibaba were down around 2% on Wednesday.

"I would ascribe the decline in shares more to Jack Ma's cautious comments on CNBC related to the Chinese economy," said Wedbush analyst Gil Luria, referring to Ma's admission that the "next five to 15 months will be a tough time for China" because of a crackdown on spending by government officials and a slowing economy. 

It's also possible the decline was in response to the continued concerns about Alibaba's counterfeit issues.