Euro zone retail sales much stronger than expected, data shows

Euro zone retail sales grew unexpectedly quickly in September even after a large upward revision in the previous month’s data, adding to the case that private consumption may be finally starting to increase, figures from Eurostat showed on Thursday.

Retail sales grew by 0.5% in the month based on adjusted figures, above expectations for 0.4%, even after the previous month’s growth rate was lifted to 1.1% from 0.2%, Eurostat said.

The healthy growth figure along with the big revision lifted the annualised increase to 2.9% in September, well ahead of expectations for 1.3% in a Reuters poll of economists.

Household consumption has been weak for well over a year despite a rebound in real incomes, with families choosing to save their cash rather than spend it.
This has puzzled policymakers and kept economic growth rather weak, raising fears that the bloc’s long-awaited recovery may not come at all.

But the revisions released on Thursday suggest retail trade has been trending upward since June, with growth accelerating in the closing months of the summer.

Among the bloc’s biggest countries, Germany and Spain produced above average monthly growth rates while France, which saw a big Olympic boost in the previous month, suffered a small decline in September.

Non-food product sales grew well above average on the month and the annualised growth rate hit 5.3% in September, after 2.4% in the previous month.