It marked the highest monthly amount of online purchases, breaking the earlier record of 6.1 trillion won set in the previous month.

Purchases made through smartphones, tablets and other mobile gadgets also soared 30.2 percent on-year to a record 3.5 trillion won, accounting for 56.3 percent of all online sales in December.

Demand for clothes rose 10 percent on-year to 703.9 billion won and online sales of cosmetics surged 31.9 percent to 513.6 billion won, while online food delivery vaulted 31.2 percent to 579.4 billion won.

For all of 2016, online shopping jumped 20.5 percent on-year to a record 64.9 trillion won, with mobile transactions totaling 34.7 trillion won, up 41.9 percent from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the amount of purchases from foreign online shopping malls grew 12.1 percent on-year to 1.9 trillion won last year as a growing number of South Korean people seek cheaper and exclusive overseas products.

Nearly 65 percent of the overseas purchases were made through US online malls, followed by the those from the European Union and China.

Purchases of foodstuffs jumped 31.7 percent to 442.8 billion won and those of electronic devices surged 37.2 percent to 192.1 billion won. (Yonhap)