China’s retail sales of consumer goods increased 1.9 per cent year-on-year in the first four months of 2026, reflecting continued but moderate expansion in domestic consumption, according to official data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday.

Total retail sales of consumer goods reached about 16.49 trillion yuan (~$2.41 trillion) during January-April 2026. Excluding automobiles, retail sales of consumer goods rose 3.1 per cent year-on-year to 15.2 trillion yuan, indicating stronger underlying consumption outside the auto segment.

Urban retail sales stood at 14.29 trillion yuan in the first four months, up 1.8 per cent year-on-year. Rural retail sales grew at a faster pace of 2.8 per cent to 2.2 trillion yuan, showing relatively stronger consumption momentum in rural areas.

Retail sales of services expanded 5.6 per cent year-on-year during the period, accelerating by 0.1 percentage points from the first quarter. Strong growth was recorded in transportation and travel services, the data showed.

Online consumption remained a key growth driver. China’s total online retail sales of goods and services reached 6.53 trillion yuan in January-April, up 6.6 per cent year-on-year.

Online goods sales increased 5.7 per cent to nearly 4.12 trillion yuan, accounting for 25 per cent of total retail sales of consumer goods.

Online services sales grew faster, rising 8.3 per cent year-on-year to 2.41 trillion yuan, underlining the continued shift towards digital consumption and service-led spending in the world’s second-largest economy.

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