Retail Trade - January 2006

In January, seasonally adjusted sales in ‘retail trade except of motor vehicles and motorcycles’ increased by 1.0% month-on-month at constant prices. Not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 6.4% year-on-year. The biggest contribution to this growth had chain stores of all assortment types of stores.
In January, seasonally adjusted retail sales (CZ-NACE 52) grew by 1.0% month-on-month at constant prices. The trend component increased by 0.3% and even though its growth has been gradually decelerating since August, this slowdown makes only about hundredths of a percentage (Table 1).

Graph 1

Seasonally adjusted sales grew by 4.5% year-on-year at constant prices (January 2006 had one working day more than January 2005). Not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 6.4%, which was along with August 2005 the biggest growth since September 2003. The sale of non-food goods was up by 7.0%, the sale of food, beverages and tobacco (including the sale of non-food goods in chain stores) by 5.8%.

The biggest contribution to the total growth had both types of non-specialised stores (stores with food beverages or tobacco predominating and stores with non-food goods predominating), specialised stores with other non-food goods (mainly sale of books, newspapers and stationery and other retail sale in specialized stores) and stores with clothing, textiles and footwear. The fastest growing sales were in stores with clothing, textiles and footwear; in non-specialised stores with non-food goods predominating (Table 3) and in sale via mail order houses, which is in terms of volume insignificant (+14.3%). A drop was recorded in 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 (+11.9% and +11.8% respectively). Enterprises with 20 to 49 employees reported a growth of 5.1%, while enterprises with 0 to 19 employees recorded a drop of 0.2%.

The price deflator for retail sales in total decreased by 1.1% compared to the corresponding period of previous year. The biggest drop was recorded in specialised stores with textiles, clothing and footwear (-5.8%). Without including the influence of price, sales grew (at current prices) in all assortment types of stores with the exception of stores with pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles, second-hand goods and repair of personal and household goods. The results show that the action sales do not decrease the nominal value of sales but on the contrary they significantly support its growth.

In January, according to data presented by Eurostat, seasonally adjusted constant price retail sales in the EU25 were 0.1% down month-on-month and 1.5% up year-on-year (working days adjusted). Among member states for which data were available, year-on-year increases in sales were observed in Latvia (+18.6%), Estonia (+13.1%), Lithuania (+9.9%), Sweden (+7.8%), Finland (+7.2%), Denmark (+6.9%), Slovakia (+6.8%), Austria (+3.7%), Poland (+3.6%), Luxembourg (+2.6%), Germany (+1.5%), the United Kingdom (+1.0%). Decreases were reported for Spain (-0.9%) and France (-0.3%).

Not seasonally adjusted sales growth in the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 50) of 5.7% year-on-year at constant prices was affected mainly by higher sales from the sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles (+8.0%); retail sale of automotive fuel also increased (+2.5%).

In retail trade incl. the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 52+50) , seasonally adjusted sales rose by 1.6% month-on-month at constant prices and not seasonally adjusted sales by 6.2% 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 March 2006
End of data processing: 14 March 2006
The data for January 2006 are preliminary. Final data for all months of 2006 will be known in June 2007.
Monthly data since 1997 are available as time series ( /produkty/slu_cr ).