Banking & Finance
SA retail sales down 2.5% in March
Stats SA reports that South Africa's retail trade sales decreased by 2.5% year-on-year in March 2021.
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The largest negative annual growth rates were recorded for: all ‘other’ retailers (-18.5%); retailers in pharmaceuticals and medical goods, cosmetics and toiletries (-10.7%); and general dealers (-9.3%).
The main negative contributor to this decrease was general dealers (contributing -4.5 percentage points).
Seasonally adjusted retail trade sales decreased by 3.7% in March 2021 compared with February 2021. This followed month-on-month changes of 6.9% in February 2021 and -2.3% in January 2021. In the first quarter of 2021, seasonally adjusted retail trade sales increased by 1.5% compared with the fourth quarter of 2020.
Retail trade sales decreased by 1.3% in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the first quarter of 2020. The main negative contributor to this decrease was all ‘other’ retailers (-18.7% and contributing -2.4 percentage points).