A young Chinese man has attempted to celebrate China’s Singles Day by proposing to his girlfriend, except it didn’t all quite go according to plan.

The programmer, from Guangzhou province, spent the equivalent of two years salary on buying 99 iPhone 6s in order to – presumably – impress his girlfriend.

Arranging roughly £50,000 worth of Apple technology in a heart shape outside their workplace, the tech worker clutched a bouquet of flowers as a small crowd gathered to watch the young man’s heartfelt proposal – and to capture the moment on their smart phones.

A closer shot of the couple (weibo)

Unfortunately, the man’s girlfriend was less than impressed and turned him down in front of friends and colleagues, who then immediately shared the exchange on China’s social media network Weibo.

Weibo users were singularly unimpressed with local media reporting most simply dismissed the man’s gesture as “stupid”.

China’s “Single’s Day” was created several years ago and has grown into a worldwide phenomenon, frequently touted as the ‘biggest online shopping day in the world’ as millions of Chinese singles take to the web to buy themselves presents.

The proposal seen from above (weibo) (Via Weibo)