Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods in May 2025

In May, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 4,132.6 billion yuan, up by 6.4 percent year on year, of which the retail sales of consumer goods other than automobiles reached 3,731.6 billion yuan, up by 7.0 percent. From January to May, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 20,317.1 billion yuan, up by 5.0 percent, of which the retail sales of consumer goods other than automobiles reached 18,432.4 billion yuan, up by 5.6 percent.

According to the location of business units, the retail sales of consumer goods in urban areas in May were 3,605.7 billion yuan, up by 6.5 percent year on year; the retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas reached 526.9 billion yuan, up by 5.4 percent. From January to May, the retail sales of consumer goods in urban areas were 17,649.0 billion yuan, up by 5.1 percent; the retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas reached 2,668.1 billion yuan, up by 4.9 percent.

According to consumption patterns, in May, the retail sales of goods reached 3,674.8 billion yuan, up by 6.5 percent year on year; the income of catering industry was 457.8 billion yuan, up by 5.9 percent. From January to May, the retail sales of goods reached 18,039.8 billion yuan, up by 5.1 percent; the income of catering industry was 2,277.3 billion yuan, up by 5.0 percent.

According to the retail formats, from January to May, the retail sales of convenience store, specialty store, supermarket, brand exclusive store and department store in retail enterprises above the designated size increased by 8.5, 6.3, 5.7, 1.8 and 1.3 percent respectively year on year.

From January to May, the online retail sales nationwide reached 6,040.2 billion yuan, up by 8.5 percent year on year, of which the online retail sales of physical goods reached 4,987.8 billion yuan, up by 6.3 percent, accounting for 24.5 percent of the total retail sales of consumer goods; among the online retail sales of physical goods, food, clothing and consumer goods increased by 14.5, 1.2 and 6.1 percent respectively.

Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods in May 2025

Annotations:

1. Explanatory Notes

Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods: refer to the revenue received by enterprises (units, self-employed individuals) through direct sales of non-production and non-business physical commodities to individuals and social institutions, and revenue from providing catering services.

Online Retail Sales: refer to the total retail sales of goods and services through public online trading platforms (including self-built websites and third-party platforms). Goods and services include physical goods and non-physical goods (such as virtual goods, service goods, etc.).

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 goods retail activities or providing catering services. Among them, units above the 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 enterprises (units and individuals) engaged in hotels and catering services with annual main business income of 2 million yuan and above.

3. Survey Methods

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

4. Scope of statistics

As the scope of wholesale and retail enterprises, hotels and catering enterprises (units and individual households) above the designated size changes every year, in order to ensure that the data of the current year are comparable with that of the previous year, the same period data used to calculate the year-on-year growth rate of various indicators such as retail sales of consumer goods of units above the designated size is consistent with the statistical scope of enterprises (units and individual households) in the current period, and there is a different data access standard between the data published in the current year and the previous year. This is mainly due to the fact that there are some enterprises (units and individual households) to be included in the survey after having reached the requisite size every year, and some (units and individual households) that fail to meet the quota standards due to their smaller scale to be removed from the survey, and there are also the effects of enterprises (units and individual households) that are newly established and bankrupt and enterprises with their business licenses cancelled (revoked).

As the scope of online platforms included in the online retail sales statistics changes every year, in order to ensure that the data of the current year are comparable with that of the previous year, the data of the same period adopted for calculating the year-on-year growth rate of online retail sales are consistent with the scope of the platforms under statistics in the current period, and there is a different data access standard between the data published in the current year and the previous year. This is mainly due to the fact that there are new platforms to be included in the survey scope every year, and also platforms that do not meet the requirements of the statistical system to be removed from the survey scope.

5. Month-on-Month Figure Revision

According to the auto-revision function of the seasonal adjustment model, the month-on-month growth rate of the total retail sales of consumer goods since May 2024 was revised. The revised results and the month-on-month data of May 2025 are as follows:

6. Explanation of Year-on-Year Growth Rate

Data on the total retail sales of consumer goods and online retail sales were revised according to the results of the Fifth National Economic Census. The monthly growth rates of the total retail sales of consumer goods and online retail sales in 2025 are calculated on a comparable basis.