British retail sales rose more than expected in July, boosted by good weather and the women’s European soccer championship, but annual growth was slower than expected after extensive revisions to previous months’ data.
Sales volumes in July were up 0.6 per cent from June, the Office for National Statistics said, above economists’ forecasts of a 0.2 per cent rise in a Reuters poll, but the annual growth rate came in below expectations at 1.1 per cent.
June’s 0.9 per cent monthly growth rate was revised down to 0.3 per cent and there were significant other corrections to past data.
The ONS had delayed the latest data release to allow more time to correct previous seasonal adjustments that had not accounted properly for holidays such as Easter and the different length of different months’ collection periods for retail data.
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“The new figures published today show a similar overall pattern of three-month on three-month growth, but with less volatile month-on-month changes,” James Benford, the ONS’ incoming director general of economic statistics, said.
Sterling was little changed after the data.
The figures come a week before the release of July gross domestic product data, which economists expect to show a slowdown after unexpectedly strong growth in the first half of the year, partly due to higher government spending.
Last month the British Retail Consortium reported that spending at its members, mostly larger retail chains, had risen by 2.5 per cent in cash terms in July, boosted by higher spending on food and summer clothes during the fifth-hottest July on record.
But after higher prices were taken into account, especially for food, this represented a fall in purchase volumes.
Electrical retailer Currys said on Thursday that hot weather had spurred spending on air conditioners and fans, helping lift sales in Britain and Ireland by 3 per cent in the four months to the end of August.
Meanwhile, UK house prices rose for a third consecutive month in August, pushing the average price of a property to a record high as momentum returns to the market.
House prices increased by 0.3 per cent month on month in August – after a 0.4 per cent rise in July and a 0.1 per cent increase in June – pushing the average price of a UK home to £299,331.
The rise was significantly ahead of the 0.1 per cent expected by economists. - Reuters
