EU retail sales drop 1.6pc in December
Eurozone retail sales in the run up to Christmas weren’t strong as analysts had forecast, or thought, denting hopes that GDP will have improved in the fourth quarter.
In December, sales fell one per cent year-on-year after expectations of a 1.5 per cent rise. And November’s 1.6 per cent increase has been revised down to a more modest 1.3 per cent.
Month-on-month, sales fell 1.6 per cent after analysts had predicted a 0.5 per cent decline. November’s 1.4 per cent increase has been revised down to 0.9 per cent.
Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight has called the figures hugely disappointing, commenting:
Hopefully, a strengthening in consumer confidence to a 30-month high in January and the help to purchasing power coming from muted inflation across the Eurozone (just 0.7 per cent in January) will increasingly underpin consumer spending and help Eurozone economic recovery to gain traction as 2014 progresses.
Nevertheless, it still seems unrealistic to expect anything better than gradual improvement in consumer spending across the Eurozone in the near term at least as the economic fundamentals remain challenging for consumers in many countries.