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Seasonally adjusted retail trade sales in May, purchases from retailers, increased by 0.6% for the three months to May when compared with the previous three months, according to Stats SA.
This largely resulted from a 2.9% increase in sales by general dealers such as supermarkets. April and May were the first months to see a prolonged halt in load-shedding after more than 18 months of severe power disruptions.
Almost four-month-long suspension of load-shedding has positively influenced companies’ ability to pay better salary increases in 2024 which, in turn, has started to bring some relief for household budgets. SA that has been under “immense pressure” from rising inflation and high interest rates over the last two years, said BankservAfrica in its May Take-home pay index.
In real terms, salaries adjusted for inflation were up 4.5% in May up on year-ago levels, BanservAfrica said. Stats SA said in the release of retail trade sales data for May that purchases from retailers increased by 0.8% year on year in May.
Contributions to the year-on-year increase in May came from a 1.7% increase in purchases from general dealers which added 0.7 percentage points to the overall reading, and a 4.4% increase from specialized retailers in goods such as food, beverages, and tobacco, which added 0.3 percentage points. Though it represents a smaller share of the retail basket, furniture and appliance sales — up by 6.2% — also contributed 0.3 percentage points to the May increase.
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However, month-on-month increases of 1% and 0.5% in March and April were followed by a 0.7% decrease in May. Demand conditions, he said, were not expected to improve materially in the near term amid sustained high interest rates and ongoing supply-side constraints.
