S Korea’s online sales jump to record high in Q2

South Korea’s e-commerce sales jumped to a quarterly record high during the second quarter, driven by an increase in cyberspace transactions among businesses, a government report showed Friday. The country’s online sales came to 287.04 trillion won (US$253.35 billion) during the April-June period, up 16.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the report by Statistics Korea. The amount is also up 2.2 percent from the previous quarter, South Korean news agency (Yonhap) reported. This marked the highest quarterly results since the agency started to compile related data in 2000, the statistics agency said. The increase is in line with the growing trend among businesses and consumers to turn to cyberspace for cheaper and more convenient transactions, it added. The report showed that business-to-business (B2B) transactions, which accounted for over 90 percent of all cyber sales, came to 263.28 trillion won, up 17.2 percent from a year earlier. Business-to-government (B2G) sales rose 4.5 percent on-year to 16.15 trillion won over the cited period. Business-to-consumer (B2C) deals also grew 2.7 percent to 4.72 trillion won while consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transactions surged 26.9 percent to 2.89 trillion won, the report showed. Meanwhile, “cybershopping” sales mostly involving B2C also increased 11.2 percent on-year to 7.83 trillion won during the second quarter, according to the report.(QN