Real-time retail consumption tracker for August 23-29, 2021

Consumer spending growth declined slightly between August 23 and 29, 2021, amounting to +12.8% y-o-y. At the same time, SberIndex analysts note that, due to the presidential payments for schoolchildren, preliminary estimates indicate that the growth rate in August is set to surpass the trend growth rate and amount to +16.2% y-o-y in nominal terms.

The rise in household spending on goods and services for August 23–29, 2021, was +12.8% y-o-y.

This week was slightly less active than it has been historically due to a significant portion of spending shifting to the first half of the month. The normalized spending level remains high nonetheless (+14.4% y-o-y).

The preliminary growth rate estimate for consumer spending on goods and services in August in Russia is +16.2% y-o-y in nominal terms.

This figure is higher than the current trend rate and is clearly related to the presidential schoolchildren benefits. We have raised our evaluation of the contribution by this factor to the overall growth rate to 4.5 percentage points.

Additional spending by the population relative to the seasonal norm as of the end of August comes to RUB 203.2 bn.

The consumer activity index remains high, amounting to 78.6 p. at the end of the week.

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