Chinese New Year boosts January retail sales at 14.5%

Almost double than initial estimates.

According to Barclays, January retail sales were +14.5% y/y by value (up 16.8% y/y by volume), which is much higher than the Bloomberg consensus economics estimate of +7.8%.

The y/y growth is also an acceleration compared to the +5.7% y/y seen in December.

Here’s more from Barclays:

We believe growth was faster partially due to the earlier timing of the Chinese New Year, which started on 31 January 2014, vs 10 February in 2013.

January this year would capture more of the pre-Chinese New Year shopping; therefore to judge if there is a real pick-up in consumer sentiment, we believe it would be more meaningful to look at January and February combined.

So far according to Chinese New Year sales growth figures released by some retailers we cover, we see stable but not a marked acceleration of growth in Chinese New Year week (y/y comparison, adjusted for Chinese New Year timing difference).