Stimulating residents’ information consumption and expanding domestic demand are crucial pathways for accelerating the construction of the domestic economic cycle and promoting regional coordinated development. This study employs the national information consumption pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment. Utilising panel data from 284 prefecture-level and above cities across China between 2010 and 2023, it constructs a multi-period difference-in-differences model to empirically examine the impact and mechanism of information consumption on regional coordinated development. Findings reveal that information consumption exerts a direct promotional effect on regional coordination, a conclusion that remains robust across multiple tests. Furthermore, information consumption indirectly fosters regional coordination through permeation, restructuring, and innovation effects by dismantling information barriers, enhancing factor allocation efficiency, and accelerating digital technological innovation. This effect is particularly pronounced in eastern regions and areas with advanced digital infrastructure and legal frameworks. Based on these findings,this paper proposes policy recommendations in areas such as optimizing the layout of information infrastructure, expanding application scenarios for information consumption, and strengthening support for digital technology innovation, with the aim of accelerating the coordinated development of regional information consumption and narrowing the digital divide and regional disparities.