Retail sales grew 12.7% YoY in February

The Chinese New Year festivities contributed to the growth.

After the Chinese New Year festivities at the end of January 2023, year-on-year retail sales went up 12.7% in February 2023, figures from SingStat showed.

It was a reversal from the 0.8% decline in January 2023 but excluding motor vehicles, retail sales grew 11.7%, following the 2.1% increase in January 2023.

"The year-on-year increase in retail sales was partly attributed to a lower base, as some shops were not open during the Chinese New Year (CNY) public holidays on 1-2 February 2022," read the overview.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, retail sales increased almost 4% in February 2023 over the previous month. Excluding motor vehicles, seasonally adjusted retail sales went up 2.0% compared to January 2023.

The total retail sales value in February 2023 was at $3.6b, of which, online retail sales made up an estimated 12.4%, higher than the 11.4% recorded in January 2023.

Excluding motor vehicle figures, the total retail sales value was about $3.1b. Of the total amount, 14.2% came from online retail sales.

Online retail sales of the computer & telecommunications equipment, furniture & household equipment and supermarkets & hypermarkets industries made up 46.4%, 29.8% and 13.4% of the total sales of their respective industry.