South Korea's e-commerce sales grow slowest in three years

South Korea's e-commerce sales grew at the slowest pace in more than three years amid the protracted economic slowdown, a government report showed Monday.

E-commerce sales, gauging transactions in the cyberspace, rose 2.1 percent from a year earlier to 287.1 trillion won ($255 billion) in the first quarter, according to Statistics Korea.

The growth was the lowest since the third quarter of 2009 when the online sales reduced 2.9 percent on an on-year basis, reported Xinhua.

The result came amid the sluggish economic growth. South Korea' s gross domestic product expanded less than 1 percent for the past eight straight quarters.

Business-to-business (B2B) sales, which account for more than 90 percent of total sales, increased 1.7 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier.

Business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions grew 16.1 percent on-year in the first quarter, with the consumer-to-consumer (C2C) sales gaining 5.6 percent over the same period.