SberIndex: Russians don’t economize on presents

Between December 21 and December 27, SberIndexanalysts observed a typical increase in expenses ahead of New Year. In terms of scale, it still does not lag behind last year's being 22% up w-o-w adjusted for the calendar factor. The dynamics of Russians' consumer spending stayed flat, being 1.1% up y-o-y.

If the current positive trends are maintained, the annual change in consumer spending will be -5.8% y-o-y. Rated food spending is expected to add 4.6% in 2020.

Non-food retail's 2020 performance will be slightly negative. The early estimate is -2% y-o-y. The final value will depend on the evolution of New Year sales. In any case, this is a good result, given that the segment faced severe restrictions in April and May.

The aggregate trade turnover in Russia at year-end 2020 will not have fallen despite the pandemic. The early estimate is +1.5% y-o-y.

The service sector never rebounded, with spending expected to be down 24.3% y-o-y.

The number of active outlets is now 5.4% higher than in February. All key areas - grocery retail, other products and services - are growing.

When publishing the materials, a reference to SberIndex (www.sberindex.ru) is mandatory.

SberIndex.ru is an analytical website by Sberbank that illustrates how life in Russia has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, you can find three key indexes on the website, all of them based on anonymized data. These are an incidence model, the consumer activity index, and consumer activity changes. The all-new Business section features the evolution of gross payroll and change in small business activity. The website also has other studies, including all SberIndex lab ones (former SberData).