SberIndex: spending remains at this year’s highs

Between April 5 and 11, 2021, consumer spending added 5.2% since the pre-pandemic weeks of February 1 to March 15, 2020. Seasonally adjusted general consumer demand is at this year's highs,SberIndex analysts claim. Some categories saw spending migrating from product segments to services last week, which resulted in this category's slowdown deceleration to 2.9%, a relatively high performance for post-pandemic.

Nominal change (% y-o-y) without adjustments. On April 5-11, 2021, consumer spending surged by 40.4% y-o-y.

Changes compared to weekly average figures of Feb 1-Mar 15, 2020. Consumer spending was up 5.2% between April 5 and 11, 2021, since the last pre-pandemic weeks. Seasonally adjusted spending is still at this year's highs.

Some categories saw spending migrating from product segments to services, which resulted in deceleration of retail sales to +7.3% from +8.4%, but the growth rate in the service segment decelerated to 2.9%, a relatively high performance for post-pandemic.

The 18% decline in the Cafés, Bars, and Restaurants category since Feb 1-Mar 3, 2020, is still crucial for the service sector. However, some very early signs of revival were spotted in the category during the weekend.

Индекс потребительской активности на прошедшей неделе прибавил 1,5 п. и составил 71,6 пункта. Таким образом, тренд на достаточно уверенное восстановление номинальных расходов сохраняется.

The consumer activity index added 1.5% last week to reach 71.6 points. Therefore, a rather steady revival of nominal spending is maintained.

SberIndex analysts would like to remind you that the evolution of spending and its comparison to last year's results (%, y-o-y), which is an integral part of our tracker, will be extremely hard to interpret in the next two months due to the extreme impact of the base effect. In April and May 2020, severe barrier gestures were put in place, forcing consumption to only secure the minimum volume required to keep the economy moving. For a better display of the current demand and its changes, we will temporarily introduce a comparison with the fixed period of February and the first half of March 2020 (Feb 1, 2020 - Mar 15, 2020).

When publishing this material, a reference to SberIndex (www.sberindex.ru) is mandatory.

SberIndex.ru is SberBank's analytical portal, illustrating how life in Russia has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The website features four key indices based on anonymized data: an incidence model, a consumer activity index, consumer activity changes, and a tourism index. The Business section shows the evolution of gross payroll and changes in small business activity. Other studies by SberIndex lab (formerly SberData) are also available on the website.