British retail sales unexpectedly rose by 0.3% in September, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday, boosted by the launch of the latest iPhone and other technology products. <\/p>\n
A Reuters poll of economists had forecast a monthly fall of 0.3% in sales volumes from August. <\/p>\n
Sterling rose by more than a third of a cent against the U.S. dollar after the data was published. <\/p>\n
The ONS said telecoms and computers were the main drivers of non-food sales, with the sectors jumping by almost 35% in monthly terms in September. <\/p>\n
Last month, Apple unveiled an artificial intelligence focused-iPhone 16 lineup as well as a sleeker Apple Watch and new AirPods. <\/p>\n
British households are still struggling with higher living costs accelerated by a surge in energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. <\/p>\n
But the cost of living squeeze on households has slightly eased since then, with inflation falling below 2% from a peak of 11.1% in October 2022. <\/p>\n
The ONS said during the year to September 2024, sales volumes rose by 3.9%, the largest annual rise since February 2022. <\/p>\n
“Retail sales grew in September as tech stores reported a notable rise in sales,” Hannah Finselbach, senior statistician at the ONS, said.
\n“These were only partially offset by a poor month for supermarkets, where retailers said bad weather and households continuing to cut back on luxury food items hit sales.” <\/p>\n
Recent reports from UK retailers had shown robust foods sales. <\/p>\n
Tesco, Britain’s biggest grocer, lifted its annual profit forecast and said it was expecting a strong Christmas. <\/p>\n
But consumers have remained reluctant to spend on discretionary items. <\/p>\n
The boss of another supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, which makes a quarter of its sales in non-food, told Reuters shoppers remained nervous about spending on bigger ticket items before the new government’s first budget on Oct. 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
British retail sales unexpectedly rose by 0.3% in September, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday, boosted by the launch of the latest iPhone and other technology products. A Reuters poll of economists had forecast a monthly fall of 0.3% in sales volumes from August. Sterling rose by more than a third of a cent against the U.S. dollar after the data was published. The ONS said telecoms and computers were the main drivers of non-food sales, with the sectors jumping by almost 35% in monthly terms in September. Last month, Apple unveiled an artificial intelligence focused-iPhone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-868349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}