Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods Went Up by 6.7 percent from January to February 2022

From January to February, the total retail sales of social consumer goods reached 7,442.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.7 percent. Among them, the retail sales of consumer goods other than automobiles reached 6,730.5 billion yuan, an increase of 7.0 percent. Excluding price factors, the total retail sales of social consumer goods from January to February actually increased by 4.9 percent year-on-year.

According to the location of business units, the retail sales of urban consumer goods from January to February reached 6,459.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.7 percent; the retail sales of rural consumer goods reached 983.3 billion yuan, an increase of 7.1 percent.

According to the types of consumption, from January to February, retail sales of goods reached 6,670.8 billion yuan, an increase of 6.5 percent year-on-year; catering revenue was 771.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.9 percent.

According to the retail format, From January to February, the retail sales of supermarkets, convenience stores, department stores, professional stores and specialty stores in retail units above designated size increased by 3.0, 12.8, 2.1, 10.3 and 5.3 percent respectively year-on-year.

From January to February, the national online retail sales reached 1,955.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.2 percent. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods were 1,637.1 billion yuan, an increase of 12.3 percent, accounting for 22.0 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 12.7, 3.9 and 15.1 percent respectively.

Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods from January to February 2022

Annotations:

1. Explanatory Notes

Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods: refers to the sales of physical commodity or the income of catering services sold or provided by enterprises (units) to individuals, social organizations for non-production and non-operation purposes.

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

The corporate enterprises, industrial activity units or self-employed individuals which retail goods or provide catering services. Enterprises (units) above designated size refer to those wholesale enterprises (units) with an annual revenue from primary business of 20 million yuan and above, those retail enterprises (units) with an annual revenue from primary business of 5 million yuan and above, and those hotel and catering enterprises (units) with an annual revenue from primary business of 2 million yuan and above.

As the scope of wholesale and retail enterprises, accommodation and catering enterprises (units) above the designated size changes every year, the same period used to calculate the growth rate of retail sales per unit of consumer goods above the designated size is consistent with the statistical range of enterprises (units) in this period, and there is a caliber difference from the data released last year in order to ensure that the current year's data are comparable with the previous years. The main reasons are as follows: some enterprises (units) reach the designated size and are included in the scope of the investigation every year, at the same time, some enterprises (units) withdraw from the scope of the investigation because their scale is smaller than the designated size, and there are also the effects of newly opened enterprises, bankruptcy, note (revocation) enterprises (units).

3. Survey Methods

All enterprises (units) above designated size are surveyed, while the data of enterprises (units) 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 February 2021 was revised. The revised figures and figures are as follows: