Retail card spending falls slightly in December
Retail card spending falls slightly in December – Media release
14 January 2014
Retail spending using electronic cards decreased by a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent in December 2014, Statistics New Zealand said today. This slight fall followed a 0.2 percent decrease in November 2014.
"Although most retail industries were up in December, fuel spending fell significantly," acting business indicators manager Tehseen Islam said. "Like November, the fall in fuel spending coincided with falling fuel prices."
The largest retail movements in December 2014
were:
• fuel, down $23 million (3.2
percent)
• consumables, up $14 million
(0.8 percent).
Core retail spending (which excludes the vehicle-related industries) rose 0.1 percent in December 2014.
The total value of electronic card spending, including the two non-retail industries (services and other non-retail), fell 0.3 percent.
Trends for the total, retail, and core retail series have all generally been rising since these series began in October 2002, although the total and retail series have eased in recent months.
In unadjusted terms, card-holders made 139 million transactions across all industries in December, with an average value of $54. The total amount spent across all transactions was $7.5 billion.
This data is not adjusted for price changes and is available only at the national level.
Ends
For more information about these statistics:
• Visit Electronic Card Transactions: December
2014
• Open the attached files
ElectronicCardTransactionsDec14.pdf
ectdec14tables.xls