Eurozone Retail Sales Fall Unexpectedly

(RTTNews) - Eurozone retail sales dropped unexpectedly in January on falling non-food and auto fuel sales, data from Eurostat revealed Thursday.

Retail sales fell 0.1 percent month-on-month in January, confounding expectations for an increase of 0.3 percent. This was the first fall in five months. Sales had increased 0.2 percent in December.

Sales of non-food products and automotive fuel in specialized stores fell 0.2 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, food, drinks and tobacco sales grew 0.3 percent.

Year-on-year, retail sales growth accelerated to 2.0 percent from 1.8 percent in December. This was also faster than economists' forecast of 1.7 percent.

In the EU27, retail sales gained 0.1 percent from the prior month and increased 2.3 percent from the previous year.

Among member states of EU, the highest monthly increases in the total retail trade volume were recorded in Estonia, Latvia and Portugal. In contrast, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia registered the largest decreases.