May 19, 2005

High street sales shows continued weakness

by brian_turner

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for visiting!

Year-on-year growth in high street sales has fallen to its weakest level since April 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Although monthly retail sales increased by 0.5% in April 2005, sales growth on a yearly basis was only 2.3% compared to 2.4% in March. Quarterly sales growth was 0.2%, the same as in the previous quarter.

April’s monthly increase contradicted reports of difficult trading conditions from high street stores. Health and beauty retailer Boots revealed an 11% decrease in annual profits in April, following a profits warning in March. The ONS said that the fact that Easter 2005 fell in March, could have influenced the figures.

George Buckley, an economist at Deutsche Bank, said that, when food-sales are taken out, the figures indicate a significant weakness. However, analysts do not think that the latest figures will have any impact on base rates.

Story link: High street sales shows continued weakness

Add to Bookmarks:

 

 

 

• Recent Posts

  • Windows 7 SP1 just a minor update
  • Commodore 64 is reborn
  • Small businesses at greatest risk from cyber crime
  • 26% of UK youngsters have tried hacking
  • Whitevector maps social media for marketing and brand management

• Most read today

  • Forum admins warned on new wave of spam
  • How Google destroyed $1 billion of United Airlines
  • How to combat spam on vbulletin forums
  • Hurricane on Wall St: Lehman bust; Merrill bought
  • Basic install and optimisation of a vbulletin forum