Chart of the Day: Online sales surged to $376m in April

Overall retail sales growth likely to contract.

This chart from UOB shows the rise of online sales in April that amounted to $376m, despite the fall of overall retail sales. The computer and telecommunication equipment cluster benefitted in the surge as it accounted for 70.6% of total sales in the respective industry.

UOB notes that the rise in online sales will likely encourage retail stores to incorporate IT and digital solutions to their businesses as retail stores that had been doing so had given themselves a reasonable fighting chance even during the circuit breaker.

This is coupled with several government measures that aims to help businesses digitalise in partnership with platform solution providers.

However, despite the rise in online sales and the demand for consumer necessities, overall retail sales growth is likely to contract in a double-digit fashion for May and June no thanks to COVID-19 concerns amidst circuit breaker and phase one restrictions.