December retail sales growth sluggish at 5.7%

Even visitor arrivals were slow.

According to Barclaysm, December 2013 retail sales growth slowed to +5.7% y/y (vs +8.5% y/y for Nov, and more similar to September and October growth trends), below the Bloomberg consensus forecast of +7.2% growth.

December saw mainland Chinese visitors grow at +12% y/y, similar to October and November which saw +11% y/y and +10% y/y growth only; the Jan-Nov period saw +17% y/y growth.

Here's more from Barclays:

For December, same-day visitor arrivals grew by +14% y/y and overnight visitors grew by +9% y/y only.

Cosmetics and medicines saw growth at +14.7% y/y, better than the +11.3% y/y for Nov. However we would like to point out that Sa Sa (178.HK) had seen slower growth in December. We expect Sa Sa to report Chinese New Year sales data early next week. We believe there is risk that sales growth during Chinese New Year could be weak, due to the general trend that we are not seeing mainland spending growing as fast during the traditional peak holiday seasons (vs non-peak seasons), and also the risk that the claims in Next Magazine (January 2014 issue) that Sa Sa products have expiry date issues might have led to customer caution in purchasing products from Sa Sa.