Online shopping sales in South Korea rose 11 percent on-year in February on the back of growing demand for agricultural and fisheries products for the Lunar New Year holiday, data showed Monday.
The value of online shopping transactions amounted to 18.98 trillion won (US$14.09 billion) in February, up from 17.09 trillion won, according to the data from Statistics Korea.
It marked the largest amount ever for any February.
The growth came as demand for farm produce surged 48.9 percent to 1.09 trillion won as people celebrated the Lunar New Year holiday, which ran from Feb. 9-12 this year.
The increase was also thanks to the government’s various discount events for agro products in February amid high inflationary pressure, an agency official said.
Other food items and beverages also saw online sales jump 20.9 percent to 2.58 trillion won.
Online sales for travel and transportation services rose 21.6 percent on-year to 2.14 trillion won, while demand for communication devices and computers and relevant gad
gets fell 21.7 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively.
Purchases made through smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices increased 12.1 percent on-year to 14.2 trillion won, accounting for 74.8 percent of the total online sales, the data showed.
Source: Yonhap News Agency