This represents the highest rise this year, bringing growth for the first nine months to 5.4% over the same period of the previous year. The third quarter saw a rise of 6.0% on the year, similar to Q2 but significantly up on 3.3% in Q1.
The two principal retail categories, food, beverages and tobacco and non-food products, recorded similar rises over the year. The latter was up 7.9% while the former came in somewhat below this as 6.6%.
In non-food products the strongest categories were pharmaceuticals and household goods, rising a respective 9.3% and 13.1% y-on-y in September and showing relatively strong performance throughout the year. In smaller categories, double-digit increases were seen in sales of books and newspapers.
The strongest performer year-to-date was mail order sales, which were up 17.8% since the beginning of the year, due to very strong growth up to April. However, the category still accounts for just half a percent of total retail sales.
Month on month retail sales growth was 1.0% in September. Retail sales of food beverages and tobacco were up 1.0% during the month while sales of non-food products rose 1.2%.
