Denmark: Retail spending continues to come down

Danske Research Team Danske Bank A/S

Danish card and MobilePay data shows spending up by only around 5% for mid- October compared to 2019. Accounting for price developments and changes in cash spending, this amounts to spending around normal. The timing of the fall holiday is likely to put some drag on the most recent figures for service spending, which should come up again with the next release.

Overall, retail spending continues to come down, and is now no longer driving consumption growth, as was the case for most of 2021. Over the past weeks retail spending has dropped to less than 10% above normal levels – by comparison, retailing was 25% higher in March this year than normal.

We are starting to see some weakening of electronics spending – albeit from an extremely high level. If this persists over the coming weeks, it is likely to be the first indicator of supply issues affecting consumer choice.

The steep increase in gasoline prices over the most recent weeks shows up clearly in the data, with spending in gas stations up by 15%. Since we started producing data in early 2019, spending in gas stations has not made up such a large share of total spending outside a summer holiday as it did last week.

Overall, we are looking to see how rising energy prices and supply issues in retailing will effect spending. So far, the effect seems limited.

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Author

Danske Research Team

Danske Bank A/S

Research is part of Danske Bank Markets and operate as Danske Bank's research department. The department monitors financial markets and economic trends of relevance to Danske Bank Markets and its clients.

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