Singapore's retail sales dropped by 10% year-on-year in February 2019, worse than market consensus of a 5.2% fall and after a 7.6% gain in January, affected by higher sales in February 2018 which was associated with the Chinese New Year festive season. Sales fell for all categories: motor vehicles (-5% vs 20% in January), petrol service (-7.7% vs 0.1%), medical goods & toiletries (-10.4% vs 10.1%), wearing apparel (-14.9% vs 10.6%), furniture & household equipment (-14.7% vs -0.1%), recreational goods(-5.2% vs 1.1%), watches & jewelry (-9.2% vs 3.9%), computer & telecommunications (-4.3% vs -11.4%), optical goods & books (-7.2% vs -1.4%) and others (-1.5% vs 8.7%). Also, sales shrank in department stores (-11.8% vs 8.8%), supermarkets (-13.2% vs 9.7%), mini-marts (-5.2% vs 2.1%) and food retailers (-24.8% vs 8.3%). On a monthly basis, retail sales fell unexpectedly by 1.5% in February, compared to an upwardly revised 0.5% rise in January, missing estimates of a 1.5% growth. Retail Sales YoY in Singapore averaged 4.99 percent from 1986 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 50.90 percent in February of 1988 and a record low of -28.40 percent in February of 1986.
Retail Sales YoY in Singapore is expected to be 1.60 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Retail Sales YoY in Singapore to stand at 2.40 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Singapore Retail Sales YoY is projected to trend around 3.00 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models.