Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods in March 2023

In March, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 3,785.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.6 percent. Among them, the retail sales of consumer goods other than motor vehicles reached 3,359.1 billion yuan, up 10.5 percent.

From January to March, the total retail sales of consumer goods was 11,492.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.8 percent. Among them, the retail sales of consumer goods other than motor vehicles reached 10,409.4 billion yuan, up 6.8 percent.

According to the location of business units, the retail sales of consumer goods in urban areas in March was 3,286.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.7 percent; the retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas reached 498.7 billion yuan, up 10.0 percent. From January to March, the retail sales of consumer goods in urban areas reached 9,966.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.7 percent; the retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas reached 1,525.8 billion yuan, up 6.2 percent.

According to consumption patterns, in March, the retail sales of commodities reached 3,414.8 billion yuan, an increase of 9.1 percent year-on-year; the income of catering industry was 370.7 billion yuan, up 26.3 percent. From January to March, the retail sales of commodities reached 10,278.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.9 percent; the income of catering industry was 1,213.6 billion yuan, up 13.9 percent.

According to the retail formats, from January to March, the retail sales of supermarkets, convenience stores, professional stores，specialty stores and department stores in retail enterprises above designated size increased by 1.4, 8.8, 5.7, 0.2 and 9.2 percent respectively year-on-year.

From January to March, the national online retail sales reached 3,286.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.6 percent. Among them, the online retail sales of physical commodities reached 2,783.5 billion yuan, up 7.3 percent, accounting for 24.2 percent of the total retail sales of social consumer goods; among the online retail sales of physical commodities, food, clothing and consumer goods increased by 7.3, 8.6 and 6.9 percent respectively.

Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods in March

Annotations:

1. Explanatory Notes

Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods: refers to the amount of physical goods sold by enterprises (units and individual households) to individuals and social groups for non-production and non-business purposes through transactions, as well as the amount of income obtained from providing catering services.

Online Retail Sales: refers to the sales of goods and services got through public online trading platform (including self-built websites and third-party platform). Goods and services include physical goods and non-physical goods (such as virtual product, services).

The total retail sales of consumer goods include online retail sales of physical goods, excludes online retail sales of non-physical goods.

2. Statistical Coverage

Legal person enterprises, industrial activity units and self-employed households engaged in commodity retail activities or providing catering services. Among them, units above designated size refer to wholesale enterprises (units and individuals) with annual main business income of 20 million yuan and above, retail enterprises (units and individuals) with annual main business income of 5 million yuan and above, and accommodation and catering enterprises (units and individuals) with annual main business income of 2 million yuan and above.

As the range of wholesale and retail enterprises, accommodation and catering enterprises (units and individual households) above designated size changes every year, in order to ensure that the data of this year are comparable with the previous year, the same period number used to calculate the year-on-year growth rate of various indicators such as retail sales of consumer goods of units above designated size is consistent with the statistical range of enterprises (units and individual households) in this period, and there is a difference in caliber from the data published in the previous year. The main reason is that every year, some enterprises (units and individuals) meet the quota standards and are included in the investigation scope. At the same time, some enterprises (units and individuals) withdraw from the investigation scope due to their small scale and fail to meet the quota standards. There are also new enterprises (units and individuals) that are newly opened, bankrupt, and registered (suspended) for sale.

3. Survey Methods

All enterprises above designated size is surveyed, while the data of enterprises below designated size are collected by sampling survey.

4. Month-on-Month Figure Revision

According to the auto-revision function of the seasonal adjustment model, the growth rate of the total retail sales of consumer goods since March 2022 was revised. The revised results and the month-on-month data of March 2023 are as follows: