China’s Jul retail sales grew at slowest pace since Oct 2022, well below market expectation

 

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China’s retail sales grew by 2.5% in July from a year earlier, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.

The growth slowed from the 3.1% growth in the previous month, marking the slowest growth since October 2022 and decelerating for the third consecutive month. That’s well below average expectation of 5.2% by analysts in 14 major institutions.

On a month-on-month basis, retail sales in July fell by 0.06% from the previous month, the first drop so far this year and compared to 0.24% growth in June, showed the data.

The slowdown in retail sales in July was mainly due to slowing auto sales, while tourism consumption, electric product and household goods consumption are expected to rebound, said Fu Linhui, spokesperson of the NBS.

Automobile consumption fell by 1.5% on year in July, expanding from the 1.1% fall in June.

In breakdown, retail sales of physical goods rose by 1% on year in July, compared to 1.7% growth in June, while catering retail sales rose by 15.8% in July, compared to previous 16.1% growth, showed the data. 

For the first seven months of the year, retail sales grew by 7.3% year over year, showed the data. 

Online retail sales in the period of January – July grew by 12.5% from a year earlier, slowing from the 13.1% growth in the first six months, and of that, online retail sales of physical goods grew by 10%, slowing by 0.8 percentage point.

In July alone, online retail sales grew by 6.6% on year, slowing from the 6.7% growth in the previous month, according to calculations based on NBS data.