Retail Trade - April 2006

In April, seasonally adjusted sales in ‘retail trade except of motor vehicles and motorcycles’ increased by 0.1% month-on-month at constant prices. Not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 6.3% year-on-year. The biggest contribution to the growth had non-specialised stores (in particular chain stores).

In April, seasonally adjusted retail sales (CZ-NACE 52) grew by 0.1% month-on-month at constant prices; sales of non-food goods grew by 0.5%, on the contrary sales of food, beverages and tobacco dropped by 0.4%. The increase of the trend component was approximately the same as in the previous months, by 0.5% (Table 1).

Graph 1


Seasonally adjusted (SA) sales increased by 6.6% year-on-year at constant prices, not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 6.3 % (the used model for seasonal adjustments of the time series took into account a lower number of working days to the detriment of April 2006 and by contrast the shifted Easter in favour of April 2006). The year-on-year growth of not seasonally adjusted sales was lower than in the previous months, the expected growth of sales due to Easter did not occur. The Czech Republic had fewer tourists who arrived by air than in April 2005, by contrast more residents flew abroad. Sales of non-food goods increased by 7.0%, sales of food, beverages and tobacco was higher by 5.4%.

The biggest contribution to the total growth had both types of non-specialised stores and specialised stores with other non-food goods (mainly sale of books, newspapers and stationery and other retail sale in specialized stores), stores with clothing, textiles and footwear and stores with electrical household appliances, hardware, furniture and other household goods. The fastest growing sales were in non-specialised stores with non-food goods predominating and in stores with clothing, textiles and footwear (Table 3). A drop was recorded in retail sale of food, beverages or tobacco in specialised stores and the sale of pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles.

In the classification according to size groups of enterprises the biggest sale growth occurred in enterprises with 100 and more employees and 50 to 99 employees (+12.9% and +6.0%, respectively). Enterprises with 20 to 49 employees reported a growth of 1.9% while enterprises with 0 to 19 employees a drop by 0.5%.

The price deflator for retail sales compared to the corresponding period of previous year reached 99.0. The biggest drop in prices was recorded in specialised stores with textiles, clothing and footwear (-6.0%), higher than in the corresponding period of the previous year were prices in stores with pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles.

In April, according to data presented by Eurostat, seasonally adjusted constant price retail sales in the EU25 were 1.1% up month-on-month and 3.8% year-on-year (working days adjusted). Among member states for which data were available, year-on-year increases in sales were observed in Estonia (+17.0%), Latvia (+16.6%), Sweden (+12.5%), Luxembourg (+9.7%), Slovakia (+9.1%), Poland (+7.8%), Finland (+7.6%), Slovenia (+5.5%), Lithuania (+5.0%), the United Kingdom (+4.8%), Austria (+4.3%), Denmark (+4.0%), Portugal (+3.1%), Germany (+2.8%), France (+2.4%) and Belgium (+1.9%) while no changes occurred in Spain.
Not seasonally adjusted sales in the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 50) grew by 2.9% year-on-year at constant prices; sale of automotive fuel by 4.7% and sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles by 2.1%.

In retail trade incl. the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 52+50) , seasonally adjusted sales rose by 1.7% month-on-month and not seasonally adjusted sales by 5.1% year-on-year.

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Note
1) The whole time series is seasonally adjusted every month, indices in the graph are changed retroactively.

Contact: Alena Hellerová, tel. 274052921, e-mail: alena.hellerova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in enterprises
End of data collection: 7 June 2006
End of data processing: 13 June 2006
The data for April 2006 are preliminary. Final data for all months of 2006 will be known in June 2007at the latest.
Monthly data since 1997 are available as time series ( /produkty/slu_cr ), on the basis of final processing data for all months of 2005 were updated.