UK retail sales jump as hot weather sends Brits to the shops

pulse

July 20, 2017 10:26 AM

The Office for National Statistics released its latest data on the state of British retail on Thursday.

A shopper checks her shopping list in a supermarket in London, Britain April 11, 2017.

LONDON — Retail sales in the UK jumped during the month of June as Brits spent more money on clothing thanks to an extended period of hot, sunny weather, new data from the ONS released on Thursday shows.

Sales grew by 2.9% on a year-on-year basis, the ONS said, up from just 0.9% in May, and ahead of the 2.7% that had been forecast by economists polled prior to the release.

On a month-to-month basis, growth was 0.6%, compared to an expected 0.4%, the data showed.

"Today’s retail sales figures show overall growth. A particularly warm June seems to have prompted strong sales in clothing, which has compensated for a decline in food and fuel sales for the month," Kate Davies, a senior statistician at the ONS said in a statement.

"Looking at the quarterly data, the underlying trend as suggested by the three-month on three-month movement is one of growth, following a fall in quarter 1, suggesting a relatively flat first half of 2017."

On a three-monthly basis, the volume bought increased 1.5% "with increases seen across all store types."

Three-month retail sales movements are generally seen as more reliable than a single month's data, which can be volatile, as June's big jump shows.

Here's the chart showing the overall retail sales trend based on three-monthly data:

The data may look promising on the surface, but given how good the weather was in June, Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics argues it should have been stronger.

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