Page 45 - RusRPTMay20

4.5.3​ Retail sector dynamics
The demand data was strong in March – the last month before the coronavirus epidemic hit Russia:​ retail sales growth accelerated to +5.6% y/y, from the revised +4.6% y/y in February (the latter was mainly underpinned by the leap year effect). Real wages rose +5.7% y/y in February.
The scale of the pick up in retail sales matched closely that in December 2014 (when it shot up +5.1% y/y), but differed in structure: six years ago, consumers stocked up on non​food durables, while food attracted little interest.
This one ​off spike is bound to hit back in April, according to our timelier retail trade indicators.
The effect of the recovering in incomes in March is visible in the retail sales, but the bump will disappear in April. In particular, food retails sales were up +4.7% YoY, whereas non-food advanced to an outstanding +6.4% YoY, a growth rate not seen since late-2014.
While an acceleration in food retail sales could have been anticipated against the backdrop of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions, the upbeat non-food retail turnover came as a surprise.
Food retail turnover accelerated from +3.7% y/y in February to +4.7% y/y in March (+1pp), whereas non-food retail sales advanced to +6.4% y/y in March from the previous +5.5% y/y (+0.9pp).
Given that the increases in demand for food (+RUB143bn) and non-food
45​ RUSSIA Country Report​ May 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com