Hungarians' willingness to spend cautiously improves
Retail sales (roughly in line with growth in household consumption) have been on an upward trend since early 2024. Admittedly, this trend is rather zigzagged and not particularly steep, but overall it shows that the increase in real income of the population is sufficient to ensure purchasing power for the growth of store sales. This also means that the June expansion reached 3% on an annual basis. At the same time, the fact that we have not yet reached the April sales level indicates the uncertainty of the process.
In the second quarter, retail sales volume was 3.9% higher than a year earlier, the strongest quarterly growth in the last three years. The data confirms the assumption that
the main driver of the slightly higher-than-expected GDP growth in the second quarter was likely to be household consumption.
The growth covers most areas of retail trade. According to the Central Statistical Office,
- the volume of turnover in food and food-related mixed retail trade increased by 3.7% on an annual basis, while
- the volume of turnover in non-food retail trade increased by 3.9% overall. Sales volume increased by 8.3% in industrial goods stores, 4.8% in pharmacies, medical product stores, and perfume stores, and 3.5% in furniture and technical goods stores. At the same time, turnover volume decreased by 1.3% in textile, clothing and footwear stores and in book, computer and other industrial goods stores, and by 5.1% in second-hand stores.
- The volume of parcel delivery and online retail, which covers a wide range of goods and accounts for 8.3% of retail sales, increased by 9.2%.
- The volume of traffic at petrol stations increased by 2.5%.
- A kiskereskedelmi adatokba nem tartozó gépjármű- és gépjárműalkatrész-üzletek volumene 2,5%-kal nőtt.
Cover photo (for illustration purposes only): Getty Images
