The total sales value was $18.9 billion in the June 2015 quarter, 4.1 percent ($749 million) more than in the June 2014 quarter.
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The figure, well below the downwardly-revised 2.3% increase of Q1, and forecasts for rise of 0.5%, marked the weakest quarter of growth since September quarter 2012.
Retailers reported that business was steady, but not stellar through to the end of June, Retail NZ chief executive Mark Johnston said.
“The largest seasonally adjusted sales volume increase was in non-store and commission-based retailing, up 8.1%”, said Neil Kelly, SNZ’s business indicators manager.
Hong Kong will provide Q2 figures for gross domestic product, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 0.3% on quarter and 2.3% on year.
Volumes of sales were up 2.3 per cent in the March quarter boosted by lower petrol prices earlier in the year.
“Fonterra certainly dominate the rural and provincial economies here in New Zealand, and I think yes, it has an impact on how much money consumers have in their pockets and what they’re going to spend when they’re out and about shopping”.
There was no doubt sales growth slowed between April and June, after good gains in the previous two quarters. Economists predicted 5.2% growth in the value of quarterly sales from a year earlier.
Sales growth remained solid in the biggest city of Auckland and in the Canterbury region, which has significant natural disaster rebuilding projects, but was lagging in some provincial regions feeling the impact of a more than 40 percent slide in dairy prices since February.
Core retail sales volumes, which exclude fuel and vehicle sales and servicing, rose 0.1 percent.
Singapore’s retail sales increased by 6.9 percent in June on a year-on-year basis, mainly due to a spike in sales of motor vehicles, the department of Statistics Singapore (SingStat) said on Friday. That follows the 2.4 percent monthly increase and the 6.1 percent yearly jump in May.
Looking at the longer-term picture, the trends for both total retail sales volumes, and values, have generally been rising since mid-2009.
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After removing the effect of price changes, the total retail sales volume rose 5.9 per cent in the June quarter, when compared with the same quarter previous year.
