BEIJING, April 16 (Xinhua) -- China's retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of the country's consumption strength, expanded 2.4 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2026, official data showed Thursday.

The pace is 0.7 percentage points faster than the growth in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Total retail sales of consumer goods reached 12.77 trillion yuan (about 1.86 trillion U.S. dollars) in the January-March period. By category, retail sales of goods increased 2.2 percent to 11.31 trillion yuan, while catering revenue climbed 4.2 percent to 1.46 trillion yuan.

Service consumption continued to outperform, with service retail sales expanding 5.5 percent year on year in the first quarter, unchanged from the full-year pace in 2025. Notably, communication and information services, tourism-related leasing and consulting, as well as cultural and recreational services, recorded faster growth.

Online consumption remained a key pillar. Total online retail sales of goods and services rose 8 percent year on year to 4.98 trillion yuan. Within this, online goods sales increased 7.5 percent to 3.16 trillion yuan, accounting for 24.8 percent of total retail sales, while online services sales grew 8.8 percent to 1.82 trillion yuan.

In March alone, the retail sales of consumer goods rose 1.7 percent year on year, the data showed.

China has implemented a wide range of special initiatives to boost consumption this year, accelerating the development of new growth drivers in service consumption and promoting the steady improvement of the consumer market.

While acknowledging the effects of the policies at a press conference, NBS deputy head Mao Shengyong also noted that residents' consumption capacity and willingness need further enhancement, and the supply of high-quality goods and services still cannot fully meet the diversified consumption demands.

In the next phase, efforts should focus on building a strong domestic market, further stabilizing employment, promoting income growth, optimizing the consumption environment, and continuously unlocking consumption potential to drive sustained, stable and healthy economic development, Mao said.