Sales in retail trade, hotels and restaurants - 2. quarter of 2007

Retail trade including the automotive segment

In Q2 2007, seasonally adjusted sales in retail trade including the automotive segment grew by 1.3% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices; in the automotive segment also by 1.3% and in retail trade by 1.2%. The long-term growth of the trend slightly decelerated in Q2 2007. Year-on-year, sales increased by 7.4% in total, in the automotive segment by 8.3% and in retail trade by 7.0%.

Not seasonally adjusted sales in retail trade including the automotive segment with the same working time availability as in Q2 2006 increased by 7.4% year-on-year at constant prices. A higher growth was reached in Q1-Q2 than in the whole 2006, however in Q2 the growth rate slowed down.

• Automotive segment (CZ-NACE 50)

The year-on-year sales in the automotive segment grew by 8.6%, approximately with the same rate in all three months. Compared with the growth in 2006, also Q2 had a higher growth rate, however compared to this year’s Q1 a lower year-on-year growth was reached. The deceleration was affected by the sale of automotive fuel, when in Q2 2007 the positive effect of favourable weather faded away for some of the divisions consuming automotive fuel. On the contrary, sale of motor vehicles recorded high sales also in Q2 in all three months, on average for the quarter sales increased by 13.3% compared to the same period of the previous year.
The development of recorded sales corresponded also with the statistics of first registrations of vehicles (passenger cars, small commercial vehicles, commercial vehicles and public service vehicles), carried out and published by the Automotive Industry Association. In Q2 2007 their number increased by 18.4%, of which the number of registrations of new vehicles by 7.6% and used vehicles by 29.9%. The growth concerned all of the vehicle categories and ranged from 16.6% for commercial vehicles to 20.1% for small commercial vehicles).

• Retail trade (CZ-NACE 52)

Also in retail trade except of motor vehicles and motorcycles the high sale growth reached in the previous quarter slightly decelerated to 6.9%. In spite of this it is possible also in Q2 to talk about a dynamic sale growth in all of the observed size groups, the most in enterprises with 50 to 99 employees. The total growth was significantly contributed to by enterprises with 100+ employees, whose share in the total sales already reached 45%.
From the assortment types point of view, the total growth was mostly contributed to by specialised stores. Also in Q2 , stores with furniture, electrical appliances and other household goods had the biggest share, which affected the total growth by almost 28%.

A more dynamic growth of sales of non-food goods compared to food beverages or tobacco, which began in Q2 2005, continued. The fastest growth occurred in stores with furniture, electrical and hardware goods and further in retail sale of textiles, clothing and footwear and also in sales of pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles.

In stores classified to the assortment of food, beverages or tobacco sales increased particularly in enterprises with 100+ employees (+4.0%), while a drop continued in groups with 20-49 and 50-99 employees (-1.7%, -2.9%, respectively).

Reasons for increasing sales in retail trade in the long-term, particularly in the non-food segment, were related among other things to the growing purchase power of the population, supported by relatively low interest rates for mortages and accessible consumer credits. Another influence, supporting the population’s desire to purchase, was the continuing price drop of textiles, clothing and footwear and also furnishings and household equipment. Compared to the previous quarter however the effect of exceptionally favourable weather for construction, which is also connected with completion and the purchase of new household equipment, passed away; this could have been one of the reasons for the growth deceleration.


Hotels and restaurants (CZ-NACE 55)

In Q2 2007, seasonally adjusted sales in hotels and restaurants decreased by 0.6% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices, which happened for the first time since Q2 2006. Similar development had also the trend component, which recorded a drop of 0.4%.

Not seasonally adjusted sales in hotels and restaurants increased only by 0.8% year-on-year at constant prices. The growth was recorded in all of the months of Q2 2007, however only as a result of the sale growth for catering services. Accommodation services sales increased slightly only in April, in May and June in particular sales already dropped. From the long-term point of view sales for catering services have been developing differently than sales for accommodation services. While the first mentioned started to drop following an increase of VAT in May 2004 and a change in the development, which lasted until now occurred after two years; sales for accommodation services, which kept the VAT unchanged following the entry to the EU, reached a high growth in 2004 and a drop respectively stagnations in some of the months have started in April 2005. Only in February and March 2007 they recorded an extraordinary growth of more than 3%.

In Q2 2007 sales grew in enterprises providing accommodation and catering services particularly in size groups with 20-49 employees and 50-99 employees (+4.6%, 5.8%, respectively), while in small enterprises with 0-19 employees a drop of 1.4% was recorded.