BEIJING—Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. played down its sales figures and touted its social welfare initiatives in the final hours of its Singles’ Day festival on Thursday, marking a shift in tone for the highly-publicized annual online shopping event.
Eschewing a rolling tally tracking transactions that had taken center stage in previous years, Alibaba urged viewers of a three-hour livestream to click “like” and help raise 1 million yuan ($156,359.90) for a 200-acre (81-hectare) elephant reserve in China’s rural southwest.
