23 February 2010

2010- n° 52

In January, households consumption in manufactured goods decreased (–2.7%) Household consumption expenditure on goods - January 2010

Households consumption in manufactured goods decreased in January by 2.7% in volume*, after + 1.3% in December.

[* Volumes are chained and all figures are trading days and seasonally adjusted.]

Expenditures in durables largely decreased in January (–7.8%), after a 2.5% increase in December.

Car purchases mainly contribute to this decrease (–16.7%). The scrapage program encouraged households to buy new vehicules before the end of the year 2009 (+10.7% in November, +5.3% in December).

Household durables purchases remained dynamic (+1.3%) after a small decrease in December (-0.3%). Each component, expenditures in domestic electrical appliances, electronics and computers, or furniture remained dynamic.

In January, expenditures in textile increased by 1.6%, after an already dynamic +2.0% in December.

Other manufactured goods expenditures decreased in January (–0.4%, after +0.3% in December). In particular, sales in edition and press or hardware products weakened while those in jewelry improved.

Q4 growth of consumption in manufactured goods is now estimated at +3.3% (against +3.0% initially announced). Larger revisions over the last months explain this quarterly revision. In particular, November’s increase is scaled up by 0.9 point and December scaled down by 0.8 point. These revisions are mainly due to car purchases whose growth over the quarter is upgraded from +12.6% to 14.9%.

These revisions are mainly due to the update of seasonnal and working day adjustment. To a lesser extent, they are explained by new informations on other manufactured goods.