Retail Trade - May 2006

In May, seasonally adjusted sales in ‘retail trade except of motor vehicles and motorcycles’ increased by 0.3% month-on-month at constant prices. Not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 7.3% year-on-year. The biggest contribution to the growth had sale of non-food goods, which was an all-time high since 1997 when the survey started.
In May, seasonally adjusted retail sales (CZ-NACE 52) grew by 0.3% month-on-month at constant prices; sales of food, beverages and tobacco grew by 0.4%, sales of non-food goods by 0.3%. The increase of the trend component was approximately the same as in the previous month, by 0.4% (Table 1).

Graph 1
Seasonally adjusted (SA) sales increased by 5.8% year-on-year at constant prices (May 2006 had one working day fewer than May 2005). Not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 7.3%. The steady growth of non-food sales over last 19 months reached 9.8% in May, which was the highest figure since 1997 when the survey started. Sales of food, beverages and tobacco were higher by 3.8%.
The biggest contribution to the total growth had non-specialised stores, specialised stores with electrical household appliances, hardware, furniture and other household goods, and specialised stores with other non-food goods (i.e. sale of books, newspapers and stationery and other retail sale in specialised stores). The fastest increases were recorded for sale in non-specialised stores with non-food goods predominating, sale via mail order houses, sale in stores with electrical household appliances, hardware, furniture and other household goods, and sale in stores with clothing, textiles and footwear (Table 3). The decrease in the sale of pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles continued, albeit at a lower rate than in the previous months.

In the classification according to size groups of enterprises, the biggest sale growth occurred in enterprises with 100 and more employees (+11.7%). Enterprises with 20 to 49 employees and enterprises with 50 to 99 employees reported growth of 9.8% and 7.3%, respectively, and enterprises with 0 to 19 employees only an increase of 1.8%.

The price deflator for retail sales (compared to the corresponding period of previous year) reached 99.2%. The biggest drop in prices was recorded for specialised stores with textiles, clothing and footwear (-6.2%). On the other hand, prices in stores with pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles were higher year-on-year (like in the 16 preceding months), and so were prices in specialised stores with food, beverages and tobacco (+0.3%) and with other non-food goods, i.e. sale of books, newspapers and stationery and other retail sale in specialised stores (+0.2%).

In May, according to data presented by Eurostat, seasonally adjusted constant price retail sales in the EU25 were up by 0.1% month-on-month and 2.2% year-on-year (working days adjusted). Among member states for which data were available, year-on-year increases in sales were observed in Latvia (+20.8%), Estonia (+19.9%), Sweden (+12.0%), Slovakia (+9.6%), Poland (+6.0%), Denmark, Lithuania and Finland (+5.5% each), Luxembourg (+4.6%), Slovenia (+4.0%), the United Kingdom (+3.9%), Portugal (+2.1%), France (+1.4%), Spain (+1.3%) and Belgium (+0.9%). Falls were registered in Germany (-2.0%) and Austria (-0.1%).
Not seasonally adjusted sales in the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 50) grew by 6.9% year-on-year at constant prices. Especially sale of motor vehicles (+8.7%) and sale of automotive fuel (+7.7%) were up, while sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles grew only by 0.6%. Since 2004, however, the year-on-year development of retail sale of automotive fuel has also been affected by organisational changes in this CZ-NACE activity, causing changes of sold products or changes in the classification of sales of individual enterprises (increasing or decreasing sales from auxiliary activities), which cannot be fully eliminated in the monthly survey.

In retail trade incl. the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 52+50) , seasonally adjusted sales at constant prices dropped by 0.1% month-on-month and not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 7.2% 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: 10 July 2006
End of data processing: 13 July 2006
The data for May 2006 are preliminary. Final data for all months of 2006 will be known in June 2007 at 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.