BEIJING, Dec. 19 -- Express deliveries in China soared in the first 11 months with 8.12 billion made during the period, the State Post Bureau announced Thursday.

The number exceeded the eight billion target made at the beginning of the year, according to the bureau.

In November, 1.09 billion deliveries were made, said the bureau.

In the week beginning Nov. 11, the country's biggest online shopping day of the year, a total of 346 million deliveries were made, jumping 73 percent from a year earlier, according to the bureau.

Analysts attributed the growth to booming online shopping which is no longer exclusively for city dwellers, as residents of smaller areas are now spending more cash buying goods on the Internet.

China has the world's biggest online population, with 564 million netizens as of the end of last year. About 200 million of them regularly buy goods from online shops, making them increasingly reliant on couriers.

Soaring demand for delivery services has led to a boom in China's courier industry. By the end of 2012, there were 8,000 registered courier firms, employing around 900,000 people across the country.