Online shopping up 2.5% in April on demand for food services

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Online shopping sales in Korea gained 2.5 percent from a year earlier in April, mainly driven by rising demand for food products and relevant services, data showed Monday.

The value of online shopping transactions stood at 21.69 trillion won ($15.73 billion) in April, up 535.2 billion won from a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea.

The growth was led by a sharp increase in demand for food services, which jumped 13.9 percent on-year to 3.9 trillion won.

Online sales of food and beverages also advanced 9.1 percent on-year to 2.56 trillion won, the data showed.

But online shopping for e-coupon services plummeted 49.1 percent to 430.5 billion won.

Purchases made through smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices increased 4.6 percent on-year to 16.79 trillion won.

Mobile gadget-based shopping accounted for 77.4 percent of the total online sales in April, up 1.5 percentage points from a year earlier, the data showed.