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S. Korea's retail sales hit 10-month high on growing mobile shopping

Xinhua, December 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

Retail sales in South Korea hit a 10-month high due to growing demand for shopping through mobile phones, a government report showed Tuesday.

Sales among retailers reached 32.28 trillion won (27.88 billion U.S. dollars) in October, up 6.5 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea. It marked the highest in 10 months since December last year.

Sales in department stores and discount outlets climbed 11.5 percent and 5.4 percent each, and convenient store sales jumped 41.5 percent in October.

The high increase in retail sales was led by rising demand for online shopping especially through mobile devices.

Mobile shopping, or purchase of goods through smartphone orders, reached 2.29 trillion won in October, making up 47.9 percent of the total online shopping including the PC-based orders.

The mobile shopping surged 59.3 percent in October from a year earlier, much faster than a 20.6 percent rise in the overall online shopping.

The portion of mobile shopping to the total stood at 19.9 percent in October 2013, but it continued to rise to 36.3 percent in October 2014 before recording an almost half of the total a year later. Endit