e-Commerce
Korea’s e-commerce trade recorded an all-time high last year, but the growth rate slowed from a year earlier.
Statistics Korea said on Feb. 25 that online sales totaled around 1.2041 quadrillion won (US$1.12 trillion) in 2013, up 5 percent from the 1.1468 quadrillion won in the previous year.
The amount is the largest ever since 2001, when the related data started to be recorded, but the growth rate slowed from the previous year’s 14.7 percent gain.
It said also that business-to-business (B2B) transactions, which made up more than 90 percent of all online trades, reached 1.0957 quadrillion won (US$1.0287 trillion), up 4.2 percent from a year earlier. Business-to-government (B2G) sales increased 13.1 percent year-on-year to 70.65 trillion won (US$66.3 billion), too.
Business-to-consumer (B2C) sales grew 15 percent to 24.33 trillion won (US$22.85 billion), while consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transactions jumped 11.7 percent to 13.41 trillion won (US$12.59 billion).
Online shopping sales, mostly involving B2C and C2C transactions, jumped up 13 percent year-on-year to to 43.68 trillion won (US$41.02 billion) from 38.49 trillion won (US$36.14 billion) in 2012.