Jakarta. Tokopedia, Indonesia's largest e-commerce platform, booked a record $1.3 billion in sales last month, marking an important milestone for the company. 

"Throughout 2019, finally Tokopedia's monthly transactions reached $1 billion," William Tanuwijaya, co-founder and chief executive of Tokopedia, said on Wednesday. 

In comparison, Indonesia's largest retailer, Indomarco Prismatama, which operates the Indomaret chain of convenience stores, booked $4.9 billion in net sales for the entire 2018. 

Tokopedia, backed by Japan's Softbank, held a month-long discount program named "Extra Ramadan" during May to cater to Indonesians who tend to spend more during the festive period. 

William said Tokopedia's online platform received about 2,500 visits per second and that more than 6,000 items were sold every minute during the peak of promotion on May 17.

The company needed 161 trucks just to transport date fruits, one of the hottest-selling items on Tokopedia, William said. 

While May's record sales were bumped up by the frenzy surrounding Idul Fitri promotions, William said he expected it to become a new benchmark for Tokopedia's monthly sales. 

"One day, this will be the transactions per day if Tokopedia continues to develop into a super ecosystem," he said.

The company has expanded its services beyond just facilitating buyers and sellers by adding features to pay utility bills, state taxes and even zakat, or Islamic alms. 

Tokopedia collected more than Rp 7 billion ($491,000) in donations and alms in May alone, William said. 

The platform co-founder also took pride in the fact that transactions on Tokopedia now originate from 97 percent of subdistricts in Indonesia, involving 5.9 million sellers across the archipelago. Most sellers are also people who previously did not own a business. 

"It means the impact of Tokopedia's mission in digital economic distribution has begun," he said.