5.8% fall in January bar volumes

Retail Sales volumes decreased by 0.2% in February with sales in bars dropping by 1.8% according to the CSO’s provisional seasonally adjusted sales figures.

Sales values for bars saw a rise of 0.5% compared to the previous February figure while February 2018 bar sales values were up 3.4% compared to the previous month, January. February’s bar sales volumes showed a decline of 0.5% on the January figure.

Final seasonally-adjusted CSO figures for January indicate a fall of 5.8% in bar sales volumes on an annual basis with a corresponding fall in sales values of 3.5%. Compared to the previous month, December 2017, bar sales volumes were up 0.2% while values fell by 4.7%.

Across the three months December 2017 to February 2018 bar sales volumes showed a decrease of 1.4% on the same quarter in 2016-17 while values showed growth of 0.8%. Comparing the December 2017 to February 2018 quarter with the immediately preceding quarter (September to October 2017) bar sales volumes were up 0.6% while values were down 2.8%.