Online shopping sales in South Korea grew at the lowest clip in more than two years in April from a year earlier on decreased demand for tour packages and reservations, a government report showed Thursday.
Total online transactions reached 4.76 trillion won ($3.99 billion) in the fourth month of 2016, up 11.3 percent from 4.28 trillion won a year earlier, according to the report compiled by Statistics Korea.
The on-year growth is the slowest since January 2014 when it expanded 11 percent.
But the April figure retreated 8 percent from a month earlier, when it reached 5.17 trillion won.
Purchases made through smartphones, tablets and other mobile gadgets jumped 31 percent on-year to 2.41 trillion won, accounting for 50.7 percent of all online sales in April, down slightly from 51.3 percent the previous month.
Online bookings for travel and movie tickets fell 2.1 percent to 773 billion won, marking the first negative growth in 10 months.
Sales of electronics rose 21.4 percent on-year to 515.5 billion won last month, while 371.9 billion won worth of cosmetics were sold online, up 32.5 percent from a year earlier, said the statistics data.
Online sales of clothes also gained 6.3 percent on-year to 521.2 billion won, with those of foodstuffs growing 20.1 percent to 456.8 billion won.
There are 991 online shopping malls operating in South Korea as of April, said the statistics agency. (Yonhap)
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