Published : Oct. 5, 2021 - 17:46
Delivery service rider drives by a street in Seoul on Tueday afternoon. (Yonhap)
Online shopping in South Korea jumped 16.8 percent on-year in August to 15.8 trillion won ($13.3 billion), the highest transaction amount ever recorded for the month since records began in 2001, data showed Tuesday. According to data from Statistics Korea, food delivery orders set a new record high of 2.4 trillion won, rising from the previous month when the figure stood at around 2.3 trillion won.
Statistics Korea said the COVID-19 pandemic and this year’s Tokyo Olympics contributed to the increase of food deliveries as well as online purchases of electronic goods.
Although the August reading for online shopping fell from a record high of 16.2 trillion won in July, the agency said online shopping continues to grow, adding that the “no parcel day” on Aug. 14 contributed to the recent drop.
Mobile shopping increased 3.6 percentage points, making up to 72.7 percent of the total value of online shopping.
Within mobile shopping, food delivery service accounted for 97.6 percent.
By Hong Yoo (
yoohong@heraldcorp.com)