China ended 2025 with only modest retail growth: total social retail sales rose 0.9% year‑on‑year in December to ¥4.51 trillion, leaving full‑year retail receipts up 3.7% at ¥50.12 trillion, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.
The December figures mask an uneven pattern. Retail sales excluding automobiles grew 1.7% in the month and 4.4% for the full year, showing that a faltering auto market was a major drag on headline consumption. Urban spending expanded 0.7% in December while rural sales rose 1.7%; over the year rural consumption grew faster (4.1%) than urban (3.6%).
By type of spending, goods retailing was the dominant contributor: December goods retail rose 0.7% while catering revenue — restaurants and food services — climbed 2.2%. Over 2025 as a whole goods retail grew 3.8% and catering 3.2%, suggesting that services continued to recover but have not yet returned to robust, pre‑pandemic growth trajectories.
Retail formats show a clear reallocation of demand. Convenience stores and supermarkets expanded briskly in 2025 (up 5.5% and 4.3% respectively), department stores were essentially flat and specialty outlets rose modestly; mono‑brand stores edged down 0.6%. E‑commerce remained the strongest channel, with nationwide online retail sales reaching ¥15.97 trillion in 2025 — up 8.6% — and online physical goods accounting for ¥13.09 trillion and 26.1% of total retail sales. Within online physical goods, groceries grew fastest (up 14.5%), followed by household goods and apparel.
Taken together, the data portray a consumer landscape in transition rather than one of broad‑based recovery. Shoppers are gravitating toward proximate, convenience and online purchases — particularly groceries — while big discretionary purchases, notably cars and branded goods, have softened. That pattern reflects a combination of structural headwinds: a still‑fragile labour and property market, elevated household savings, and caution among younger or lower‑income cohorts.
For policymakers and companies, the immediate challenge is twofold. Beijing faces pressure to sustain demand without reigniting financial imbalances — likely favouring targeted measures (tax breaks, consumption vouchers, incentives for services and rural markets) over large‑scale stimulus. For retailers and consumer brands, the imperative is to deepen omnichannel offerings, lean into food and convenience formats, and rework value propositions for more price‑sensitive shoppers as online penetration widens.
The seasonal backdrop matters: Lunar New Year spending typically lifts retail momentum, and how much households front‑load purchases into that window will shape early 2026 data. But absent a sharper turn in employment or real incomes, the 3–4% annual growth seen in 2025 is unlikely to be a springboard to sustained, high single‑digit consumption growth.