Online shopping in S. Korea jumps in 2015 on mobile transactions

Online shopping among South Korean consumers posted a double-digit growth in 2015 as people increasingly use mobile phones in transactions of goods, a government report said on Tuesday.

Shopping in cyberspace reached 53.93 trillion won (44.68 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015, up 19.1 percent from 45.30 trillion won the previous year, according to Statistics Korea.

The double-digit expansion was attributable to the widespread use of smartphones, through which consumers are increasingly purchasing products.

Mobile shopping transactions reached 24.43 trillion won in 2015, up 64.3 percent from 14.87 trillion won in 2014. It almost quadrupled the amounted tallied in 2013.

The portion of mobile shopping to overall online transactions increased to 45.3 percent in 2015 from 17.0 percent in 2013 and 32. 8 percent in 2014 respectively.

Food shopping in cyberspace especially posted a fast increase, with mobile purchases of food and beverage rising 92.2 percent and those for farm goods advancing 90.4 percent last year.

Meanwhile, retail sales climbed 1.9 percent from a year earlier to 366.52 trillion won in 2015, the biggest since the statistical agency began compiling the data in 2010.