BEIJING, Nov 24 Reuters Alibaba39;s online shopping platforms Taobao and Tmall cancelled their annual Dec. 12 shopping festival and will instead host another shopping spree called 39;yearend good price39; in December, according to notices on the platforms39; websites on Friday.

The dates of the new festival were not included in the notice, which was posted in a help section for platform merchants. Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the change.

The 12.12 shopping festival, held annually on Dec. 12 since 2012, was the lesscelebrated sister of November39;s Singles Day sales festival, which traditionally fell on Nov. 11 but has in recent years ballooned into a multiweek event beginning in late October.

This year marked the second time Alibaba declined to release its sales results for the Singles Day festival period, but data provider Syntun estimated cumulative gross merchandising volume GMV sales across major ecommerce platforms rose 2.08 to 1.14 trillion yuan 156.40 billion compared with growth of 2.9 last year.

According to Alibaba, 80 million products were offered at their deepest discount of the year for Singles Day.

Analysts saw Alibaba39;s focus on discounts this year as an attempt to fight back against rivals such as Douyin and PDD Holdings39; Pinduoduo that have changed the landscape of Chinese ecommerce in recent years by selling lowercost and discounted items yearround.

A crisis in China39;s giant property sector, where most of…