Data from Eurostat showed that retail sales increased by 0.1% in May after declining by 0.2% in April (revised from -0.5%). Economists had expected a 0.2% increase. In annual terms, retail sales rose by 0.3%, slowing compared to April (+0.6%, revised from 0%). Consensus estimates suggested an increase of 0.1%. As for the EU countries, retail sales rose by 0.1% on a monthly basis and by 0.6% compared to May 2023.
The data showed that in the eurozone, compared with April, the volume of retail trade increased for food, drinks, tobacco (+0.7%) and automotive fuel in specialized stores (+0.4%). Meanwhile, sales decreased for non-food products (except automotive fuel) by 0.2%.
Compared with May 2023, the volume of retail trade in the eurozone increased for food, drinks, tobacco (+0.3%) and non-food products except automotive fuel (+0.7%), but decreased for automotive fuel in specialized stores (-0.6%).
As for the EU countries, the highest annual increases in the total retail trade volume were recorded in Luxembourg (+10.4%), Croatia (+8.4%) and Romania (+6.5%). The largest decreases were observed in Belgium (-5.2%), Estonia (-4.0%) and Slovenia (-1.1%).