BEIJING - Growth in online retail purchases by China's rural residents outpaced that of urbandwellers in the second quarter, official data showed on Wednesday.
In the first six months, online retail sales to rural residents exceeded 310 billion yuan ($46.9billion), Shen Danyang, spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), said at a pressbriefing.
Rural online retail sales remarkably outstripped urban sales, he added.
MOC data showed that, in the second quarter, rural online sales grew by 13.48 percent from thefirst quarter. The growth rate was at least 4 percentage points higher than the growth in sales tourban residents.
In the first six months, purchases by rural residents accounted for 14.14 percent of the country'stotal online sales.
Shen noted the growth rate in rural areas in underdeveloped central and western regions stood at24.57 percent, at least 10 percentage points higher than the growth registered in better-off ruralareas.
Rural residents spent most of their money on clothing, shoes, home improvement and digitalgadgets.
For online sales of services in rural areas, online travel booking contributed 44.54 billion yuan.
A report by the China Internet Network Information Center showed that, of China's 688 millionInternet users as of the end of 2015, 195 million, or 28.4 percent, were rural residents.
