April UK retail sales boosted by Royal Wedding
UK retail sales exceeded expectations in April, growing by 1.1% from March according to official data released by the Office for National Statistics. The rise was 2.8% higher than in April last year, and was the highest gain for the month of April since 2002.
The agency said that the combination of the warm weather and an extra day’s holiday for the Royal Wedding was the most likely reason for the boost in sales.
All sectors showed year-on-year volume and value growth except for household goods stores where sales volumes and sales values fell by 3.5% and 1.8% respectively. Sales volumes for supermarkets and food stores was up 1.4% compared with the previous year, the first year-on-year rise in 15 months. Sales values in these stores grew by 6.1%.
The agency said that non-store retailing, which accounts for 4.5% of the retail sector, saw the largest volume growth between April 2010 and April 2011 with sales volumes increasing by 19.6% providing 0.9 percentage points to the all retailing series.
Over the period March 2011 to April 2011 retail sales volumes increased by 1.1% and the value of retail sales increased by 1.6%.
