Finance
UK retail sales fall by 0.3% in December
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on January 17, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 27, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on January 17, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 27, 2026
UK retail sales unexpectedly dropped by 0.3% in December, with food sales at their lowest since 2013, affecting sterling and economic forecasts.
By Andy Bruce and Suban Abdulla
LONDON (Reuters) -British retail sales fell unexpectedly in December, according to official data on Friday that added to a run of downbeat economic indicators that are likely to further boost expectations for a Bank of England interest rate cut next month.
Retail sales, adjusted for the inclusion of the Black Friday sales at the start of the month, fell by 0.3% in month-on-month terms in December after a downwardly revised 0.1% expansion in November, the Office for National Statistics said.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a monthly increase of 0.4% in sales volumes from November.
"This was driven by a very poor month for food sales, which sank to their lowest level since 2013, with supermarkets particularly affected," ONS senior statistician Hannah Finselbach said.
Sterling fell by around a quarter of a cent against the U.S. dollar after the data, tipping below $1.22.
Retail sales for the fourth quarter as a whole fell by 0.8%, something the ONS said was likely to drag on economic growth in the fourth quarter by around 0.04 percentage points.
(Reporting by Suban Abdulla and Andy Bruce; editing by William James)
The main topic is the unexpected decline in UK retail sales by 0.3% in December and its implications for the economy.
Economists had forecasted a 0.4% increase, but sales fell by 0.3%, contrary to expectations.
Following the sales data release, sterling fell by around a quarter of a cent against the U.S. dollar.
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