Economy 7 April 2025, 8:35am

Shopping loses momentum in Hungary

Portfolio

The volume of retail sales in Hungary fell in February on a monthly basis. High inflation, especially the rise in food prices, could be behind this. The February figure was not yet affected by the margin cap introduced by the government in mid-March.

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Retail sales fell by 0.6% in February compared with January, according to seasonally and working-day adjusted data. This figure excludes the impact of the margin freeze, with food inflation of 7.1% partly responsible for the decline.

This does not break the upward trend in retail sales, but at most slows it. In January, volumes were 2.2% higher than in December,

so the February figure is only a small correction to this expansion.

Although the full impact of the margin cap introduced on 17 March will not be known until April, it is expected to provide a boost to sales. The prices of many products have fallen significantly and less than 10% of the products in the online price monitoring system have become more expensive.

Compared with the same period last year, retail trade grew by 3.3%, a slight slowdown from 4.7% in January.

The volume of sales grew by 3.5% in both specialised and non-specialised food retailing. The volume of sales increased by 3.8% in non-specialised food and beverage stores, which account for 77% of food retailing, and by 1.3% in specialised food, beverage and tobacco stores.
Total non-food retail sales increased by 5.0% in volume terms.
The volume of mail order and internet retailing, which accounts for 8.3% of total retail sales and covers a wide range of goods, grew by 1.5%.
Motor fuel retail volumes rose by 0.4%.