SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's online shopping kept a double-digit growth in October amid the continued COVID-19 pandemic, statistical office data showed Thursday.
Shopping in the cyberspace amounted to 14.24 trillion won (13 billion U.S. dollars) in October, up 20.0 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea.
The growth rate was down from a 30.7 percent expansion in the previous month, but the online shopping continued to increase in double figures as people refrained from outside activities, such as offline shopping, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Food delivery services through online order surged 71.6 percent in October from a year earlier, with online purchase of food and beverage jumping 43.8 percent.
Online purchase of consumer electronics and telecommunication devices advanced 39.6 percent, and the figure for household items picked up 38.8 percent in the month.
Culture and leisure services transaction in the cyberspace almost doubled in October as the government eased its social-distancing guidelines in the month following the COVID-19 resurgence here in August and September.
Among the total online shopping, the mobile shopping using smartphones soared 22.9 percent from a year earlier to 9.54 trillion won (8.7 billion U.S. dollars) in October. Enditem
