Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods in May 2023

In May, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 3,780.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.7 percent. Among them, the retail sales of consumer goods other than motor vehicles reached 3,387.5 billion yuan, up 11.5 percent.

From January to May, the total retail sales of consumer goods was 18,763.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.3 percent. Among them, the retail sales of consumer goods other than motor vehicles reached 16,974.3 billion yuan, up 9.4 percent.

According to the location of business units, the retail sales of consumer goods in urban areas in May was 3,290.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.7 percent; the retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas reached 489.7 billion yuan, up 12.8 percent. From January to May, the retail sales of consumer goods in urban areas reached 16,296.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.3 percent; the retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas reached 2,466.8 billion yuan, up 9.4 percent.

According to consumption patterns, in May, the retail sales of commodities reached 3,373.3 billion yuan, an increase of 10.5 percent year-on-year; the income of catering industry was 407 billion yuan, up 35.1 percent. From January to May, the retail sales of commodities reached 16,767.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.9 percent; the income of catering industry was 1,995.8 billion yuan, up 22.6 percent.

According to the retail formats, from January to May, the retail sales of convenience stores, professional stores, specialty stores and department stores in retail enterprises above designated size increased by 8.0, 6.8, 6.0 and 11.4 percent respectively year-on-year, and the retail sales of supermarkets decreased by 0.3 percent year-on-year.

From January to May, the national online retail sales reached 5,690.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.8 percent. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods reached 4,805.5 billion yuan, up 11.8 percent, accounting for 25.6 percent of the total retail sales of social consumer goods; among the online retail sales of physical goods, food, clothing and consumer goods increased by 8.4, 14.6 and 11.5 percent respectively.

Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods in May

Annotations:

1. Explanatory Notes

Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods: refers to the amount of physical commodities 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 commodities and non-physical commodities (such as virtual product, services).

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

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 hotels 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 different data access standard between the data published in this year and 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).

3. Survey Methods

All enterprises above designated size are 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 May 2022 was revised. The revised results and the month-on-month data of May 2023 are as follows: