Sberbank of Russia : SberIndex describes situation when demand for products and services could go up

According toSberIndexanalyst, between January 18 and 24the dynamics of consumer spending in Russia didn't change, with growth maintained at +0.1% y-o-y.

This figure, the experts say, should be viewed in the context of many new coronavirus cases still registered in the country.

As the health situation improves, the gradual removal of restrictions will increase the consumption of services by default. According to estimates from earlier trackers, the service sector might recover by another 6‒8%, to near the figures spotted in March 2020. This will add about 2 p.p. to household demand. The further fate of the sector will largely depend on the vaccination rate and the development of herd immunity.

As to the dynamics of the key sectors, the big picture barely changed since last week. Retail goods are on the rise (+4.8% y-o-y) while the service sector is on the wane (-18.6% y-o-y).

Interestingly, it's non-food retail that still sees the number of offline outlets declining (-1.8% since before the pandemic). The service sector, however, sees the metric go up (+4.7%).

Consumer activity generally remains medium. The consumer activity index that SberIndex keeps track of reached 62.1 points during the week in question.

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).