By David Milliken
LONDON (Reuters) -British retail sales rose more than expected in July, boosted by good weather and the women’s European soccer championship, but annual growth was slower than expected after extensive revisions to previous months’ data.
Sales volumes in July were up 0.6% from June, the Office for National Statistics said, above economists’ forecasts of a 0.2% rise in a Reuters poll, but the annual growth rate came in below expectations at 1.1%.
June’s 0.9% monthly growth rate was revised down to 0.3% and there were significant other corrections to past data.
The ONS had delayed the latest data release to allow more time to correct previous seasonal adjustments that had not accounted properly for holidays such as Easter and the different length of different months’ collection periods for retail data.
“The new figures published today show a similar overall pattern of three-month on three-month growth, but with less volatile month-on-month changes,” James Benford, the ONS’ incoming director general of economic statistics, said.
Sterling was little changed after the data.
The figures come a week before the release of July gross domestic product data, which economists expect to show a slowdown after unexpectedly strong growth in the first half of the year, partly due to higher government spending.
Last month the British Retail Consortium reported that spending at its members, mostly larger retail chains, had risen by 2.5% in cash terms in July, boosted by higher spending on food and summer clothes during the fifth-hottest July on record.
But after higher prices were taken into account, especially for food, this represented a fall in purchase volumes.
Electricals retailer Currys said on Thursday that hot weather had spurred spending on air conditioners and fans, helping lift sales in Britain and Ireland by 3% in the four months to the end of August.
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Kate Holton)
