Mixed bag of economic results for SA

EMBATTLED consumers were given cause for both optimism and concern after a mixed bag of economic results released yesterday pointed to buoyant April retail sales, but declining volumes of transactions during May.

This emerged after Statistics South Africa, Mastercard SpendingPulse and Bankserve Africa announced postive and negative results for the April and May trading months.

Mastercard SpendingPulse provides a macroeconomic analysis of retail spending trends, while Bankserve Africa measures the number of transactions concluded each month and their value through its BankservAfrica Economic Transaction Index (BETI).

Mastercard, which said South African consumers had lifted their discretionary spending as inflation continued to slow, recorded the highest retail sales growth for the month of April in six years.

“Total South African retail sales for April 2018 grew by 3.7% year on year after removing the effects of inflation, showing the highest growth rate seen in April in the past six years,” Mastercard’s senior vice-president of market insights, Sarah Quinlan, said.

In its key finding on retail sales data for April, Stats SA said measured in real terms, retail trade sales had increased by 0.5% year on year, with positive annual growth rates recorded for retailers in household furniture, appliances and equipment (11%), retailers in pharmaceuticals and medical goods, cosmetics and toiletries (6.2%) and all other retailers (5.6%).

“Seasonally adjusted retail trade sales decreased by 1.2% in April compared with March. This followed month-on-month changes of -0.2% in March and 1.4% in February.

“In the three months ended April, seasonally adjusted retail trade sales decreased by 1.2% compared with the previous three months.

“Retail trade sales increased by 3.1% in the three months ended April 2018, compared with the three months ended April 2017.”

On a more negative note, the BETI for May reflected the most significantly noticeable monthly decline since December 2016, with the index dropping by 2% between April and May, according to Shergeran Naidoo, who heads stakeholder relations at BankservAfrica.

“This is the largest decline since September 2013, and is a clear showing of the weakened South African economy,” he said.