By Andreas Plecko
WIESBADEN (Dow Jones)–Against the backdrop of high inflation, German retail sales fell surprisingly sharply in April. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on the basis of preliminary data, sales after deducting inflation fell by 5.4 percent compared to the previous month. Real sales thus reached their lowest level since February 2021. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had only expected a decline of 0.5 percent. For the year as a whole, price-adjusted sales in April were down 0.4 percent.
With a minus of 7.7 percent compared to the previous month, the retail trade with foodstuffs recorded the greatest drop in sales since the start of the time series in 1994. Compared to the same month last year, sales fell by 6.5 percent. In April, food prices were 8.6 percent higher than a year earlier.
The non-food retail sector, which achieved a real sales increase of 7.2 percent compared to the same month last year, which was characterized by lockdown measures, recorded a month-on-month decline of 4.4 percent in April.
Trade in textiles, clothing, shoes and leather goods as well as department stores and sales outlets posted a significant drop of 4.3 and 7.0 percent respectively compared to the previous month. In a year-on-year comparison, however, sales increased by 123.4 and 37.1 percent respectively.
In April, online and mail-order sales increased by 5.4 percent compared to the previous month, but fell by 9.6 percent compared to the same month last year.
While sales at independent petrol stations in March fell compared to the previous month due to the significant increase in fuel prices, sales in April remained almost at the level of the previous month with a minus of 0.1 percent with prices remaining almost the same.
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DJG/apo/smh
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 01, 2022 02:20 ET (06:20 GMT)