Retail sales in the United Kingdom increased 1 percent from a month earlier in June 2019, following an upwardly revised 0.6 percent drop in May and easily beating market forecasts of a 0.3 percent decline. Non-food stores provided the largest contribution to the growth (1.7 percent vs -0.2 percent in May) boosted by sales at other stores (3.2 percent vs 1.4 percent), household goods stores (1.9 percent vs 2.4 percent) and textile, clothing and footwear stores (1.2 percent vs -3.8 percent). In addition, automotive fuel trade jumped 2.1 percent (vs -2.5 percent in May), while food sales edged up 0.2 percent (vs -0.5 percent in May). Year-on-year, retail trade growth accelerated to 3.8 percent in June from 2.2 percent in the previous month, also above market expectations of 2.6 percent. Retail Sales MoM in the United Kingdom averaged 0.22 percent from 1996 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 2.90 percent in February of 2010 and a record low of -3.50 percent in June of 2008.
Retail Sales MoM in the United Kingdom is expected to be -0.20 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Retail Sales MoM in the United Kingdom to stand at -0.40 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the United Kingdom Retail Sales MoM is projected to trend around 0.50 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models.