South Korea has seen a growing number of mobile purchases in the last few months. In August alone, transactions made through smartphones and tablets reached an all-time high.
The South Korean government on Friday released a data on mobile purchases, which breaks new records in August. According to authorities, the data suggests that more South Koreans are spending time with their handset devices.
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For the month of August, Statistics Korea documented a record-breaking SKW4.04tn (US$3.5bn) for purchases made through mobile devices. This is 29.5 percent higher than August 2016. The total amount of mobile purchases accounted for 61.9 percent of all online purchases last month.
Breaking down all mobile purchases, sales in goods and services have seen increases. Mobile bookings for travel and movie tickets in August increased 35.5 percent from August 2016, amounting to SKW755.8bn (US$659.9m) in the summer vacation month. Cosmetics sales also went 20.7 percent on-year to SKW344.8bn (US$301.05m).
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Food delivery services surged 38.2 percent on-year to SKW610.3bn (532.8m). So did electronic products, which went 18.3 percent higher to around SKW1bn (US$873.1m).
After smart devices came into the picture, online shopping has become popular due to convenience, more so in South Korea, which is the world's most wired country.
