Retail Trade - April 2007

In April, seasonally adjusted sales in ‘retail trade except of motor vehicles and motorcycles’ dropped by 0.2% month-on-month at constant prices. The year-on-year increase was 7.5% or 8.0% (not seasonally adjusted). The biggest share in the year-on-year increase of total sales was recorded for specialised stores with other non-food goods and stores with household goods. Sales in hotels and restaurants grew by 1.7%.
Seasonally adjusted sales in retail trade (CZ-NACE 52) at constant prices decreased by 0.2% month-on-month in April, of which food, beverages and tobacco fell by 0.9% and non-food goods rose by 0.3%. The trend component grew by 0.6%, which was by 0.1 percentage points less compared to the average of the previous three months (Table 1).

Graph 1
Year-on-year, adjusted for seasonal and working day effects, sales in retail trade increased by 7.5% at constant prices (April 2006 was one working day shorter than April 2007, growth adjusted only for working day effects was 7.7%). Not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 8.0%, of which non-food goods by 12.0% and food, beverages and tobacco by 2.6%.

The biggest contribution to the total growth in April had specialised stores with other non-food goods and stores selling electronics, electrical appliances, construction materials, furniture and other household goods. The fastest increases in sales were recorded in stores with household goods (+19.3%), stores with other non-food goods (+13.6%) and stores with textiles, clothing and footwear (+11.5%), see Table 3. Due to the low comparable basis of April 2006, retail sale via mail order houses, insignificant in terms of volume, grew very dynamically (+25.3%).

Broken down by size group of enterprises, the biggest growth of sales occurred in enterprises with 50 to 99 employees (+13.8%). Enterprises with 20 to 49 employees reported an increase of 11.8%, enterprises with 0 to 19 employees 9.0% and enterprises with 100+ employees 6.1%

The total deflator (related to the corresponding period of previous year) was 101.4%. Prices were up in stores with food, beverages and tobacco, in both specialised and non-specialised (+5.5% and +4.4%, respectively), in stores with pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles (+3.1%), in retail sale not in stores (except sale via mail order houses) (+2.0%) and in non-specialised stores with non-food goods predominating (+1.1%). Prices dropped in stores with other non-food goods (-2.4%), in stores with second-hand goods (-1.5%), in sale via mail order houses (-1.4%), in stores with household goods and stores with textiles, clothing and footwear (both -0.9%),

In April 2007, according to data released by Eurostat, seasonally adjusted constant price retail sales in the EU27 remained unchanged month-on-month and rose by 2.7% year-on-year (working days adjusted). Among member states for which data were available, year-on-year sale increases were recorded in Latvia (+23.3%), Estonia (+13.5%), Lithuania (+13.0%), Poland (+10.4%), Bulgaria (+7.4%), Sweden (+6.5%), Slovakia (+6.4%), Luxembourg (+5.3%), France (+5.0%), the United Kingdom (+4.0%), Finland (+2.0%), Spain (+1.6%), Denmark (+1.5%), Slovenia (+0.7%) and Germany (+0.6%). Prices dropped in Belgium (-3.7%) and Portugal (-2.4%).
In the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 50), not seasonally adjusted sales rose by 8.2% year-on-year at constant prices; sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles increased by 10.1% and sale of automotive fuel by 4.7%.

In retail trade incl. the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 52 + 50), seasonally adjusted sales at constant prices decreased by 0.8% month-on-month and not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 8.1% year-on-year.

The growth of sales in hotels and restaurants (CZ-NACE 55) slowed down month-on-month. Not seasonally adjusted sales increased by 1.7% year-on-year at constant prices: by 0.1% in hotels and by 2.4% in restaurants.

---

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

Contact: Alena Hellerová, tel. (+420) 274052921, e-mail: alena.hellerova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in enterprises
End of data collection: 8 June 2007
End of data processing: 12 June 2007
The data for April 2007 are preliminary; final data for all months of 2007 will be available in June 2008 at the latest. Monthly data since 1997 are available in time series ( /sales_indices_monthly_retail_trade_hotels_and_restaurants_time_series )