Data from China’s postal administration showed on Tuesday that postal and express delivery companies handled 701 million parcels on Monday, which coincided with the peak of the 11-11 online shopping festival.

The figure is 1.51 times the average normal daily parcel volume and represents a 9.7 percent increase over last year.

Since the start of the peak shopping days on 21 October, the express delivery market has continued to expand, averaging more than 580 million parcels per day, the data shows.

The expansion of the express delivery market has been driven by continued growth in online consumer demand, which has strongly supported the expansion of domestic demand and added to the momentum of the country’s economic recovery.

For this year’s 11.11 festival period, China’s mass mail delivery industry has taken various measures to ensure smooth and stable operations and improve its capacity and efficiency.