UK retail sales plunge 19% in April due to coronavirus lockdown – BRC

Dhwani Mehta FXStreet

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) survey showed on Wednesday, the UK consumer spending fell by 20% in April, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic led social and economic lockdown.

Key findings

“The BRC members reported a 19.1% drop in total sales last month compared with April last year, the biggest fall since it began its monthly index in 1995.

Over the three months to April, in-store sales of non-food items plunged by 36.0% while food sales over the period rose by 6.0% as consumers stocked up on essentials for the government’s coronavirus shutdown.

By contrast, online non-food sales leapt by nearly 60% in April to account for more than two-thirds of non-food spending.”

Separately, “Barclaycard, part of Barclays Bank said credit and debit card spending plunged by 36.5% compared with a year earlier as spending on travel, pubs and restaurants collapsed,” as cited by Reuters.

Market reaction

GBP/USD is consolidating the bounce from three-week lows of 1.2251 ahead of the critical UK data releases. The spot, currently, trades at 1.2278, up 0.15% on the day.

Author

Dhwani Mehta

FXStreet

Residing in Mumbai (India), Dhwani is a Senior Analyst and Manager of the Asian session at FXStreet. She has over 10 years of experience in analyzing and covering the global financial markets, with specialization in Forex and commodities markets.

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