Online shopping in China has soared over the past five years, becoming a key growth driver against downward economic pressure, the Xinhua News Agency said Monday, citing an industry report.

E-commerce surged more than 12 times from January 2011 to April 2016, while per capita consumption grew 27 percent, said a report released by Alibaba's financial services platform Ant Financial and an economics research institute.

The steady, strong growth of e-commerce has helped stabilize economic growth and supported China's transition from an investment-driven economy to one led by consumption, according to Jia Kang, head of the China Academy of New Supply-side Economics.

Spending on food and restaurants, flights, education and other daily services grew by an average of more than 70 percent annually in the past five years, the report showed.