The data, released by Statistics Canada on Friday, revealed that Canadian
retail sales slipped 0.2 percent m-o-m at CAD66.34 billion in February,
following an upwardly revised 1.6 percent m-o-m jump (from +1.4 percent m-o-m)
in January.
Economists had predicted a drop of 0.6 percent m-o-m
for February.
According to the report, 4 of 9 subsectors demonstrated decreases in
retail sales in February, accounting for 48.0 percent of total retail sales. Sales
at gasoline stations and fuel vendors (-5.0 percent m-o-m) showed the largest drop,
followed by general merchandise retailers (-1.6 percent m-o-m), and sporting
goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and miscellaneous retailers (-1.5 percent
m-o-m). On the contrary, sales at clothing, clothing accessories, shoes,
jewellery, luggage and leather goods retailers (+4.4 percent m-o-m), furniture,
home furnishings, electronics and appliances retailers (+1.1 percent m-o-m) and
health and personal care retailers (+1.0 percent m-o-m) logged the biggest advances.
Excluding auto, retail sales fell 0.7 percent m-o-m in February after an
unrevised 0.9 percent m-o-m gain in the previous month, being better
than economists’ prediction of a 0.1 percent m-o-m drop.
In y-o-y terms, Canadian retail sales surged 4.3 percent in February,
following an upwardly revised 5.2 percent climb (from +5.0 percent) in the
previous month. That was the weakest annual gain in retail sales since March
2022 (+3.2 percent).
Statistics Canada also revealed its preliminary estimates suggest that
Canada’s retail sales declined 1.4 percent m-o-m in March.