Services - 3. quarter of 2006

In Q3 2006, seasonally adjusted sales in services increased by 0.7% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. Year-on-year, not seasonally adjusted sales rose by 4.1%. The biggest contribution had again retail trade and the automotive segment.
In Q3 2006, seasonally adjusted sales in services increased by 0.7% quarter-on-quarter at constant prices. The trend component for the same period grew by 0.8%, which was by 0.4 percentage point less than in Q2 2006 and the lowest in the last six quarters (Table 1).

Graph 1
Year-on-year, seasonally adjusted sales rose by 4.4%, not adjusted sales rose by 4.1% (Q3 2006 had one working day less than Q3 2005). Retail trade and automotive segment contributed most to the growth (see Table 3), whereas other business activities reduced the growth. The highest year-on-year growth of sales in services was in computer and related activities and retail trade.

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 6.1%. Sales in the automotive segment rose by 6.5%; sale of automotive fuel grew by 2.3% and sales from the sale, repair and maintenance of motor vehicles by 9.4% (the highest growth since the beginning of the year was recorded in August). Sales in retail trade increased by 5.9%. Compared to the previous quarter the growth slowed down both for sale of food, beverages and tobacco in specialised and non-specialised stores (only +3.9%) and for sale of non-food goods (in Q3 +7.4%). The most marked growth of sales was recorded for retail sale of textiles, clothing and footwear (+15.5%);

- growth in hotels and restaurants by 1.7% was affected by the development in restaurants, bars and canteens where sales increased (+3.7%) following nine quarters of decrease. Sales in hotels and camping sites still keep dropping (in Q3 -2.9%);

- the increase in transport (+3.3%) was contributed to by the growth of sales in supporting and auxiliary transport activities of travel agencies (+7.2%) and unlike the previous quarter also by transport via railways (+10.8%). Sales in other land transport dropped by 0.2% and in air transport by 0.5%. A low water level of inland waterways and lower sales from goods sold by some of the units as their secondary activity led to a marked decrease in inland water transport (-25.5%);

- sales in post and telecommunications recorded in the observed quarter, in particular due to the development in telecommunications (only +0.3% growth), the lowest year-on-year growth (+0.8%) in a quarterly periodicity since the beginning of the survey in 1997. And this was in spite of the fact that sales in post and courier services increased by 6.8%, which was the highest growth since Q3 2004;

- in computer and related activities sales grew by 10.8%. The highest growth reached sales in hardware and software consultancy (+13.1%). In data processing and database activities sales increased by 2.1% after more than two years of uninterrupted decrease;

- sales in other business activities dropped year-on-year due to a continuing decrease of sales in advertising (-3.0%) but also sales in architectural and engineering activities and technical testing were lower than last year (-5.3%). Sales in legal, accounting activities and tax consultancy were only slightly below last year’s level (-0.1%), the same was recorded in investigation and security activities. In the long term, the fastest sale growth was recorded in labour recruitment and provision of personnel (+24.6%);

- sales in other service activities decreased by 1.2% year-on-year, which was due to the drop of sales in washing and dry-cleaning by 3.6%, sales in hairdressing, physical well-being and funeral activities stagnated.

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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: 6 November 2006
End of data processing: 9 November 2006
Quarterly data since 1997 are available in time series ( /produkty/slu_cr; data for 2006 are preliminary; revised data for all quarters of 2006 will be known in June 2007 at the latest.