China's retail sales rose 2.9% in October from a year earlier to 4.63 trillion yuan (about US$650 billion), driven by holiday travel and resilient services demand, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday. Sales of consumer goods excluding autos grew 4.0%, while restaurant and catering revenue increased 3.8%.

For January–October, retail sales totaled 41.22 trillion yuan, up 4.3% from a year earlier. Online retail climbed 9.6% to 12.79 trillion yuan, with physical goods up 6.3% and accounting for 25.2% of total retail sales.

NBS spokesperson FU Linghui said at a press briefing that services consumption is becoming a key growth driver as households shift toward travel, entertainment and digital services. Tourism, information services and dining demand expanded during the National Day–Mid-Autumn holiday period, while emerging segments such as digital consumption and green consumption continued to gain momentum.

Fu added that overall prices remain at low levels due to soft demand, and called for efforts to expand domestic demand, improve market competition, and advance unified-market reforms to support a "reasonable recovery" in consumer prices in the coming months.