The data, released by Statistics Canada on Friday, revealed that Canadian retail sales remained unchanged m-o-m at CAD67.57
billion in November 2024, following an unrevised
0.6 per cent m-o-m gain in October. This broke a four-month streak of increases in retail sales.
Economists
had forecast a rise of
0.2 per cent m-o-m for November.
According
to the report, 6 out of 9 subsectors demonstrated declines in retail sales in November, led by building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers
(-2.1 per cent m-o-m), food and beverage retailers (-1.6 per cent m-o-m) and general merchandise retailers (-1.0 per cent
m-o-m). These decreases, however, were offset by gains in motor vehicle and
parts dealers (+2.0 per cent m-o-m), gasoline stations and fuel vendors (+0.7 per
cent m-o-m) and sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and
miscellaneous retailers (+0.2 per cent m-o-m).
Excluding auto,
retail sales fell 0.7 per cent m-o-m in November after an unrevised 0.1
per cent m-o-m uptick in the previous month, being worse than economists’ forecast of a 0.1 per cent advance.
In y-o-y terms,
Canadian retail sales surged 1.6 per cent in November, following an unrevised 1.5 per cent climb in the previous month. This represented
the strongest annual increase in retail sales since December 2023 (+2.9 per
cent).
Statistics
Canada also revealed its preliminary estimates suggest that Canada’s retail sales
jumped 1.6 per cent m-o-m in
December 2024, the most since January 2023 (+2.3 per cent m-o-m).