Mubasher: The Eurozone’s retail trade volume continued decreasing on a monthly basis in January, against analysts’ forecasts, but posted an above-forecast annual growth due to rising online sales.
Retail sales declined by a monthly rate of 0.1% in January, compared with a revised decline of 0.1% in the previous month, data by the Eurostat showed on Monday.
Economists, polled by Reuters, had expected a monthly rise of 0.3% in January
However, the volume of retail trade in the Eurozone jumped 2.3% year-on-year, largely backed by online sales of non-food products, versus analysts’ expectations of a 2.1% increase.
As for the European Union (EU), retail sales fell by 0.1% month-on-month and rose by 2.7% year-on-year during the first month of 2018.
The euro last slipped 0.07% against the US dollar to $1.2308.