Retail credit card sales in New Zealand added a seasonally adjusted 0.8 percent on month in February, Statistics New Zealand said on Monday – rising for the fifth straight month and marking the largest increase since August 2012.
The headline figure beat expectations for an increase of 0.5 percent following the 0.3 percent gain in January.
“There was increased spending in half of the retail industries in February,” industry and labor statistics manager Blair Cardno said. “Most of this extra spending was on durables and consumables. Fuel was the only industry where there was a notable fall in spending.”
The largest retail movements were: durables, up 1.4 percent (NZ$15 million); fuel, down 1.5 percent (NZ$10 million); and consumables, up 0.6 percent (NZ$9 million).
The durables industry includes furniture, hardware, and appliance retailing. The consumables industry includes food and liquor retailing.
Transactions in the core retail industries rose 0.7 percent on month, while total electronic card transactions rose 0.8 percent.
The actual unadjusted value of transactions in the core retail series was up 1.5 percent on year at 101 million transactions in February, with an average value of NZ$54. The total amount spent across all transactions was NZ$5.4 billion.
Trends for the value of transactions in the total, retail, and core retail series have all generally been positive since these series began in October 2002, the statistics bureau said. For each series, the rate of increase has strengthened in recent months.
by RTT Staff Writer
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