Australia retail sales turnover fell -2.7% mom to AUD 35.19B in December, worst than expectation of -1.9% mom. Annually, sales fell -0.8% yoy.
Ben Dorber, ABS head of retail statistics, said: “The large fall in retail turnover in December was caused by a fall in discretionary spending. Consumers brought forward some of their usual December spending to November to take advantage of Black Friday sales.
“While there was a large seasonally adjusted fall in December, retail turnover rose 0.1 per cent in trend terms. This shows that underlying retail spending remains subdued when we look through the volatile movements over recent months in the lead up to Christmas.”
