Seoul, Dec 3 (IANS): Online shopping in South Korea has maintained a double-digit growth in October amid the continued Covid-19 pandemic, official data revealed on Thursday.

Shopping in the cyberspace amounted to 14.24 trillion won ($13 billion) in October, up 20.0 per cent from a year earlier, Xinhua news agency quoted Statistics Korea as saying.

The growth rate was down from a 30.7 per cent expansion in the previous month, but the online shopping continued to increase in double figures as people refrained from outside activities, such as offline shopping, amid the pandemic.

Food delivery services through online order surged 71.6 per cent in October from a year earlier, with online purchase of food and beverage jumping 43.8 per cent.

Online purchase of consumer electronics and telecommunication devices advanced 39.6 per cent, and the figure for household items picked up 38.8 per cent in the month.

Culture and leisure services transaction in the cyberspace almost doubled in October as the government eased its social-distancing guidelines in the month following the resurgence of the virus August and September.

Among the total online shopping, the mobile shopping using smartphones soared 22.9 per cent from a year earlier to 9.54 trillion won in October.