Services - 2. quarter of 2006

In Q2 2006, seasonally adjusted sales in services increased by 1.2% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. Year-on-year, not seasonally and working days adjusted sales rose by 4.1%. Retail trade made about two thirds of the growth; it grew fastest since the survey beginning.
In Q2 2006, seasonally adjusted sales in services increased by 1.2% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. The trend component for the same period grew by 1.2%, which was by 0.1 percentage point less than in the Q1 2006 (Table 1).

Graf č. 1
Year-on-year, seasonally and working days adjusted sales rose by 4.7% (Q2 2006 had three working days less than Q2 2005); not adjusted sales rose by 4.1%. The retail trade made up almost two thirds of the contribution to the growth (see Table 3) and the automotive segment 23%, whereas other business activities and hotels and restaurants reduced the growth. The highest year-on-year growth of sales in services was in computer and related activities. Compared to the average of the last four quarters, a higher growth was reached only in retail trade, transport and in computer and related activities.

Year-on-year development of not seasonally adjusted sales in services broken down by CZ-NACE division:

- sales in retail trade incl. the automotive segment were up by 6.4%. Sales in the automotive segment rose by 4.9% (sale of automotive fuel by 7.7% and sales from the sale, repair and maintenance of motor vehicles grew by 3.4%). Sales in retail trade increased by 7.2%, which was (in quarterly periodicity) the most since the survey beginning, i.e. since 1997 (sale of food, beverages and tobacco by 5.5% and sale of non-food goods by 8.4%). The most marked growth of sales was recorded for non-specialized stores (by 21.6%);

- sales in hotels and restaurants dropped (in hotels and camping sites sales dropped by 1.9% and in restaurants, bars and canteens they dropped by 0.6%). Quarterly observed sales in hotels and restaurants are dropping since the Q3 2004 already;

- sales in transport grew by 1.7%, especially due to growth of sales in supporting and auxiliary transport activities (by 3.9%) and transport via pipelines (by 3.3%). Sales in transport via railways and other land transport (having the highest share in the total transport) stagnated, in air transport they increased by 4.2%. Inland water transport recorded the deepest fall (by 10.3%) also due to floods in April;

- in post and telecommunications, sales grew not only thanks to telecommunications (growth by 3.3%), but also courier activities (+4.5%), which confirmed the trend change that started in the Q1;

- in computer and related activities, sales grew year-on-year by 11.0% especially owing to the development in hardware consultancy and software consultancy (growth by 12.8%). Only in data processing and database activities a drop by 4.9% was recorded;

- sales in other business activities dropped year-on-year due to a continuing decrease of sales in advertising, which reached 9.0%. Sales in architectural and engineering activities and technical testing together with legal, accounting activities and tax consultancy recorded a slight decrease. Sales in investigation and security activities dropped by 1.0%, which was for the first time since Q4 2004. On the other hand, growth of sales continued in labour recruitment and provision of personnel (+14.1%);

- sales in other service activities decreased by 4.4%, namely due to the development of, in terms of volume significant, hairdressing, physical well-being and funeral activities. In washing and dry-cleaning, there was a growth by 1.9%.

---

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

Contact: Hellerová Alena, tel. (+420) 274052921, e-mail: alena.hellerova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in enterprises
End of data collection: 8 August 2006
End of data processing: 11 August 2006
Quarterly data since 1997 are available in time series ( /slu_ts ); on the basis of final processing, data for all months of 2005 were updated.