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Retail sales in the 19 countries sharing the euro increased by
0.1 percent in April from March, the European Union's statistics
office Eurostat said, slightly below the average market
expectation of a 0.2 percent rise.
Year-on-year, the volume of retail sales grew 2.5 percent,
higher than the 2.3 percent rise forecast by economists polled
by Reuters.
The monthly rise in April was offset by a downward revision of
March data to a 0.2 percent rise from a previously estimated 0.3
percent increase.
The year-on-year growth of sales for March was revised up to 2.5
percent from the 2.3 percent estimated earlier by Eurostat.
Despite the revision and lower-than-expected growth, it was the
fourth consecutive monthly rise, a sign that shoppers seem so
far to have been unaffected by the higher inflation in the bloc.
It stood at 1.9 percent in April, before falling to 1.4 percent
in May, according to Eurostat's flash estimates.
Retail sales increased mostly for food, drinks and tobacco
products in the month containing Easter, with a 0.6 percent
month-on-month rise.
Consumers reduced by 0.4 percent their purchases of non-food
products, a wide category including clothes and footwear.
Retail sales also went down by 0.8 percent on the month for car
fuel, as oil prices increased in April.
Among the largest economies of the euro zone, sales went down by
0.2 percent on the month in Germany, the bloc's biggest economy,
and by 0.1 percent in France, while they rose by 0.6 percent in
Spain. April data were not available for Italy.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; editing by
Philip Blenkinsop)
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