NZ electronic card spending, December 2017 - Westpac

Analysts at Westpac offered a breakdown of New Zealand's retail card spending.

Key Quotes:

"Total spending: +0.2% m/m (last +1.4%), +3.3% y/y 
Retail: +0.5% m/m (last: +1.2%), +3.3% y/y  (Mkt: +0.5, Westpac: +0.5%)
Core retail: -0.2% m/m (last: +0.8%), +3.7% y/y

Details:

Retail spending rose modestly in December, with a 0.5% gain over the month. That was in line with our forecast.

December’s increase in spending was mainly due to increased spending on fuel as a result of price increases. Looking at ‘core’ retail categories, spending was actually down 0.2% over the month.

Soft core spending in December followed a sharp increase in November. However, in part that strong November result was boosted by the increased prevalence of ‘Black Friday’ sales, which saw spending brought forward to take advantage of price discounting.

Annual spending growth has slowed over the past year, from rates of over 5% p.a. at the start of 2017 to rates of around 4% p.a. now.

Looking to 2018, we expect that the strength in spending will fade over time. In part, this reflects an expected gradual easing of population growth. In addition, we expect that the new Government's policies aimed at cooling housing demand in turn will dampen growth in consumer spending."