BEIJING, July 20 (Xinhua) -- China's online retail sales rose 7.3 percent year on year in the first half of this year to 5.15 trillion yuan, showed data recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
In the first six months, online retail sales of physical goods reached about 4.35 trillion yuan, showing a year-on-year increase of 14.3 percent and accounting for 25.2 percent of the country's total retail sales of consumer goods.
The online consumption boom came as the country has been promoting "Internet plus" industries and improving network infrastructure to boost digital economy, said Lv Haiqi, director with the statistical research institute of the NBS.
Besides, the COVID-19 epidemic further enhanced consumers' online shopping habits, making online consumption grow at a faster pace and with larger proportion in total consumption. This became the most noticeable highlight of consumption in the first half, according to Zhao Ping, director with the international trade research department of the Academy of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
Online consumption has moved further to give rise to new shopping modes such as community-based e-commerce and social e-commerce, which also unleashed the potential of online consumption, added Zhao.
In terms of service, consumers who used to consume offline switched to online services while being confined to indoors. For example, people watched movies, listened to music and took classes online amid the epidemic, instead of going out to offline cinemas, live concerts and classrooms.
China will continue to witness rising online consumption with popularization of new generation information technologies and national policies to propel new formats and models of online shopping, according to Zhao. (Edited by Su Dan with Xinhua Silk Road, silviasu07@163.com)
A single purchase
