SEOUL, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Online shopping in South Korea hit a record monthly high in March as mobile applications of food service increased demand for food delivery, a government report showed Thursday.

Shopping in the cyberspace reached 8.99 trillion won (8.36 billion U.S. dollars) in March, topping the previous high of 8.79 trillion won (8.17 billion U.S. dollars) tallied in January this year, according to Statistics Korea. It was up 20.1 percent from a year earlier.

Food service transactions in the cyberspace surged 74.5 percent in the month, leading the overall online shopping growth. A rising number of mobile applications for food service increased demand for food delivery.

Online sales of home appliances and electronic devices jumped 41.6 percent on demand for air purifier. Concerns spread among ordinary people about fine dust and air pollution that are recently getting serious.

Food and beverage transactions in the cyberspace posted a double-digit increase amid the rising number of single-person households and couples working together for a living.

Among the total online shopping, mobile shopping via smartphones jumped 31.4 percent from a year earlier to 5.4 trillion won (5 billion U.S. dollars) in March.

It was the biggest since the statistical agency began compiling the data. Mobile shopping took up 60.2 percent of the total online shopping in the month.