BEIJING — Despite the impact of COVID-19, China's consumer market in 2021 saw steady recovery, exhibiting strong vitality and resilience, according to the commerce ministry on Jan 25.

Last year, China's retail sales of consumer goods rose 12.5 percent year-on-year to 44.1 trillion yuan (about $6.93 trillion), putting the average annual growth for the past two years at 3.9 percent, official data showed.

Consumption in 2021 was innovation-driven, backed with new technologies and new models, said Xu Xingfeng, an official with the Ministry of Commerce, noting the 14.1-percent year-on-year increase in online retail sales.

Meanwhile, consumption of smart products reported rapid growth last year, with sales of products such as smart door locks, smart bathrooms and sweeping robots on some e-commerce platforms up by more than 30 percent, said Xu.

Amid a trend of booming green consumption, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in China increased 1.6 times year-on-year to 3.52 million units in 2021, while the transaction volume of used cars saw an increase of 22.6 percent, according to Xu.

Ice-snow consumption also continued to gain steam over the last year with the Beijing Winter Olympics just around the corner, and sales of ski supplies on some e-commerce platforms more than doubled, he added.