BEIJING, May 5 -- Online retail sales in China's rural areas rose 8.8 percent year on year in the first quarter of the year, official data shows.

Rural online retail sales totaled 523.34 billion yuan (about 75.72 billion U.S. dollars) in the period, with growth 3.4 percentage points higher than in the same period of 2022, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Specifically, online retail sales of physical goods in China's rural areas totaled 476.66 billion yuan, up 7.7 percent year on year.

The per capita disposable income of rural residents hit 6,131 yuan in the January-March period, up 6.1 percent in nominal terms and up 4.8 percent in real terms.