Sales in the online shopping business in South Korea have expanded more than 16-fold over the past 15 years on the back of the rapid development of e-commerce transactions, government data showed Thursday.

A total of 53.9 trillion won ($46.1 billion) worth of purchases were made online last year, compared with 3.3 trillion won tallied in 2001, with an average 22 percent on-year growth every year, according to the data 
compiled by Statistics Korea.


Mobile shopping totaled 24.5 trillion won in 2015, more than tripling from 6.6 trillion won in 2013 when the agency started to collect such data.

Online shopping sales accounted for 14.6 percent of the country's total retail sales of 369.2 trillion won in 2015, up from an 8.2 percent presence in 2010.

The number of high-speed Internet subscribers surpassed 20 million last year, with 43.7 million people using smartphones in a country with a population of 50 million.

Tour packages and reservation services were the most popular item on online shopping malls, with 10 trillion won in sales in 2015, followed by clothing with 8.5 trillion won and daily goods with 6.7 trillion won, according to the data. (Yonhap)