Within retail sales, online sales of physical goods rose by 7.6% in August from a year ago, according to CNBC calculations of official data accessed via Wind.
Autos saw sales rise by 1.1%. Among the categories with faster growth were cosmetics, up by 9.7% and communication equipment, up by 8.5% in August from a year ago. Catering sales grew by 12.4% during that time.
Services sector retail sales grew by 19.4% in the January to August period from a year ago, slower than the 20.3% pace recorded for the period through July.
Late Thursday, the said that it was cutting the amount of cash that banks need to have on hand by 25 basis points, effective Friday. It was the second cut this year since one in March.
In the last several weeks, Beijing has announced a slew of measures to support the real estate market and consumption.
Monetary policy has remained relatively loose compared with aggressive and .
Also effective Friday is a reduction in the foreign exchange reserve requirement ratio for financial institutions to 4%, from 6%. The planned cut was announced two weeks ago.
The central bank has also trimmed other benchmark rates, such as the .
Moody's on Thursday downgraded its outlook on China's property sector to negative from stable. The firm expects sales to fall by around 5% over the next six to 12 months.
"While the Chinese government has recently strengthened policy support for the property sector, we expect the impact on property sales to be short-lived and differentiated between tiers of cities," Cedric Lai, vice president and senior analyst at Moody's, said in a release.
Uncertainty about future income has kept relatively muted.
China's rose by 0.1% year-on-year in August, reversing a decline in July. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, increased by the same 0.8% year-on-year pace during both months.
