British retail sales logged an unexpected growth in December, driven by food sales, while economists were looking for a decline after a rebound in November on Black Friday sales.
The volume of retail sales, including automotive fuel, increased 0.4 percent month-over-month in December, but the growth was slower than the 1.6 percent rise in November, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed Friday. Sales were expected to decline 0.6 percent.
Similarly, retail sales excluding automotive fuel advanced 0.2 percent after the 1.7 percent increase in November, when they were forecast to fall 0.7 percent.
Food store sales rose 1.3 percent in December from last year, while non-food store sales slid 0.6 percent.
The ONS said some stores experienced better sales in November as a result of 'Black Friday', which may have reduced sales in December.
On an annual basis, the increase in overall sales volume slowed less-than-expected to 4.3 percent in December from 6.4 percent in November. The growth was forecast to ease to 3 percent. This was the 21st consecutive month of annual growth.
Likewise, the annual growth in sales, excluding auto fuel, eased to 4.2 percent in December from 6.8 percent in the previous month and also exceeded a 3.4 percent rise forecast by economists.
Data showed that sales volume increased 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter, the strongest since April 2002. In 2014, retail sales climbed 3.8 percent year-on-year, marking the fastest pace of increase since 2004.
The average store prices fell 2.2 percent year-on-year on lower crude prices in December, marking the biggest fall since June 2002.
With consumer confidence still high, wage growth finally starting to gather some momentum, and the fall in oil prices set to continue to provide a boost to households' discretionary spending power, 2015 should prove to be another strong year for the consumer recovery, Paul Hollingsworth, a UK economist at Capital Economics, said.
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