S.Korea's online shopping hits record high in November 2021

South Korea's online shopping hit a record high in November 2021 as the easing of anti-coronavirus measures prompted demand for online booking services including on culture and leisure, statistical office data showed Tuesday.

Shopping in the cyberspace came to 17.5 trillion won (14.7 billion U.S. dollars) in November, up 16.5 percent from the same month of the previous year, according to Statistics Korea.

It was the largest since data began to be compiled in 2001, keeping a record-breaking trend for the third consecutive month.

The government launched the "Living with COVID-19" campaign in November by lifting restrictions on the business hour of crowded facilities and allowing more people to join private gatherings.

The social-distancing guideline was tightened again in December amid the surging COVID-19 cases and the growing worry about the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Online transactions of culture and leisure services more than doubled in November from a year earlier, and online demand for travel and transport services jumped 46.6 percent to 1.02 trillion won (853.7 million U.S. dollars).

Food delivery services in the cyberspace soared 26.1 percent to 2.07 trillion won (1.7 billion U.S. dollars) in November.

Mobile shopping through smartphones advanced 22.9 percent over the year to reach a new monthly high of 12.53 trillion won (10.5 billion U.S. dollars) in November.

It accounted for 71.6 percent of the total online shopping in November, up 3.8 percentage points from a year earlier.