Today (March 17), the National Bureau of Statistics released the latest data on retail sales of consumer goods.
According to the data, in January–February 2025, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 8.3731 trillion yuan ($1.16 trillion), an increase of 4.0% year-on-year. Among them, retail sales of consumer goods excluding automobiles amounted to 7.6838 trillion yuan ($1.06 trillion), growing by 4.8%. Retail sales of cosmetics reached 72 billion yuan ($9.9 billion), up 4.4% year-on-year.
From January to February, national online retail sales totaled 2.2763 trillion yuan ($314.5 billion), an increase of 7.3% year-on-year. Among these, online retail sales of physical goods reached 1.8633 trillion yuan ($257.4 billion), growing by 5.0%, accounting for 22.3% of the total retail sales of consumer goods. By retail format, among large-scale retail enterprises, convenience stores, specialty stores, supermarkets, and department stores saw year-on-year growth of 9.8%, 5.4%, 4.0%, and 0.4%, respectively, while retail sales of brand-exclusive stores declined by 0.8%.
CHAILEEDO analyzed the total retail sales of cosmetics in January–February over the past decade (2016–2025) and found that from 2016 to 2019, the figure showed a steady upward trend each year. However, in 2020, it recorded its first decline, dropping by 14.1%. In the following years (2021–2025), it resumed a growth trajectory, with 2021 witnessing a peak increase of 40.7%. Over the subsequent four years (2022–2025), the growth rate has slowed.
Additionally, CHAILEEDO examined the full-year retail sales of cosmetics over the past five years (2018–2024) and found that last year marked the second decline in five years, the previous one occurring in 2022, with a year-on-year drop of 4.5%. Moreover, from 2022 to 2024, the annual growth rate of cosmetics retail sales has been lower than the overall retail sales growth rate for three consecutive years.
Regarding customs import data, in January–February 2025, China imported a total of 49,936.4 tons of “beauty and personal care products,” an increase of 14.1% year-on-year, with an import value of 17.31 billion yuan ($2.39 billion), up 3.3% year-on-year.
Looking at import data for cosmetics from January to February over the past three years (2023–2025), in 2023, cosmetics import volume fell by 16.4% year-on-year, with the import value declining by 5.1%. In 2024, the import volume decreased by 14.7%, and the value dropped by 16.7%. Notably, both figures showed a double decline in 2023 and 2024, whereas 2025 marks the first double increase in the past three years.
