Sales volume of footwear & other clothing accessories up

03 Mar '08

3 min read

The Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) released the latest figures on retail sales March 3.

The value of total retail sales in January 2008, provisionally estimated at $25.7 billion, increased by 23.3% over a year earlier. After netting out the effect of price changes over the same period, the volume of total retail sales increased by 17.4% in January 2008 over a year earlier.

Affected by the timing of the Lunar New Year, with local consumer spending normally at a seasonal high just before the Festival, retail sales tend to show greater volatility in the first two months of a year. As the Lunar New Year fell in early February this year but in mid-February last year, more significant year-on-year increases in retail sales in some of the outlet types were observed in January this year.

The revised estimate of the value of total retail sales in December 2007, at $25.1 billion, increased by 16.9% over December 2006, while the volume of total retail sales increased by 12.5%.

Analysed by type of retail outlet and comparing January 2008 with January 2007, the volume of sales of footwear, allied products and other clothing accessories increased the most, by 35.6%. This was followed by sales of miscellaneous consumer goods (+21.6%); commodities in department stores (+19.6%); furniture and fixtures (+19.3%); wearing apparel (+18.5%); jewellery, watches and clocks, and valuable gifts (+11.6%); commodities in supermarkets (+10.4%) and miscellaneous consumer durable goods (+3.8%).

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