February bar volumes drop 3.9%

Pre-Covid-19 bar sales volumes fell by 3.9% and by 2.8% in value last month compared to the previous February 2019, according to the CSO’s provisional seasonally-adjusted figures for February.

February’s bar sales volumes were 0.2% up on January 2020 while they were 0.8% up on January 2020 values.

Final seasonally-adjusted figures for January from the CSO indicate that bar sales volumes were up 3.3% on January 2019 while values rose by 2.5%.

Compared to the previous month, December 2019, January 2020’s volumes were down 0.6% while values were down 0.4%.

Across the December to February quarter, bar sales volumes showed a decline of 3.1% with values down 1.6% when compared to the same quarter a year ago.

When the December 2019 to February 2020 quarter is compared with the previous September to November 2019 period volumes were down 1.1% with values down 0.6%.

More generally, retail sales’ provisional seasonally-adjusted annual volume figures were down 0.3% in February and by 4.3% compared to the previous month, January.