Retail sales still below the all-time high

In accordance with the data published today by Statistics Poland (GUS), nominal retail sales reported by businesses having more than 9 employees went up by 3.4% YoY in November comparing to a 2.3% growth in October, running markedly above market consensus (2.1%) and our forecast (1.0%). The growth in retail sales in constant prices accelerated from 1.3% YoY in October to 3.1% in November, also printing above market consensus (1.0%) and our forecast (0.5%). Seasonally-adjusted retail sales in constant prices increased by 1.0% between October and November. This means that retail sales in November remained below their all-time high reported last June.

Low base effects boosting sales growth

Sales growth was mainly driven up by a strong growth in the sales of fuels, up from -9.1% YoY in October to 4.1% in November, boosted by last year’s low base effect. Our conclusion is underpinned by poorer results of retail sales excluding fuels, which we estimate to have dropped from 3.3% YoY in October to 2.9% in November. Total sales growth in November was also driven up by real wage fund growth in the sector of businesses, which reached the highest level since August 2024 (see MACROpulse of 19/12/2024), and by Black Friday and Black Week promotions, which expanded the scale of promotional purchases more strongly than in November 2023 amidst households’ increased propensity to save. The low base effect on fuels sales mentioned above will ease up in December, and consequently we expect the retail sales growth to slow down this month, our expectation being underpinned by main consumer sentiment indicators stabilising in December, with indicator of the propensity to save remaining elevated.

Consumption growth to accelerate markedly in Q4

Retail sales data for November underpin our consumption forecast for Q4, which says that consumption is to accelerate markedly, to 2.5% YoY in Q4 vs. 0.3% in Q3. We expect the households to become gradually less inclined to save in the coming quarters, and so the consumption growth rate will stay somewhere around 2% YoY despite a strong slowdown of real wage growth. In our view, today’s data on retail sales is slightly positive for the PLN and yields on Polish bonds.