China News Service, May 15 According to the National Bureau of Statistics website, the National Bureau of Statistics released data on the total retail sales of consumer goods in April on the 15th, which interpreted Zhang Min, a statistician at the Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of the National Bureau of Statistics.
In April, with the continuous improvement of the domestic epidemic prevention and control situation, the process of enterprise resumption of business and market recovery accelerated, the residents' order of life was restored in a stable and orderly manner, especially driven by a number of consumer promotion policies, market sales further improved, and emerging consumer momentum was good , Market activity has increased.
The effect of the consumer promotion policy has initially shown, and both retail and catering services have improved
Since the outbreak of the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic, the central and local governments have intensively issued tax and fee reductions, stabilized and promoted automobile consumption, and issued consumer vouchers to help the consumer market continue to improve. In April, the total retail sales of consumer goods fell by 7.5% year-on-year, a decrease of 8.3 percentage points from March. After deducting price factors, the actual decrease was 9.1%, narrowing by 9 percentage points.
In terms of consumption type, retail sales of commodities fell by 4.6% year-on-year, a decrease of 7.4 percentage points from March; catering revenue decreased by 31.1%, a sharp decrease of 15.7 percentage points. Among them, the retail sales of commodities above designated size and catering revenue decreased by 1.5% and 27.9%, respectively, which were narrowed by 11.4 and 18.8 percentage points from March.
Emerging formats continue to expand, and consumption patterns are becoming more diverse
The growth of online retail of physical goods continued to accelerate. During the epidemic prevention and control period, residents turned part of their physical store consumption to "cloud consumption", and online shopping became an important way for residents to consume. From January to April, the national online retail sales of physical goods increased by 8.6% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 2.7 percentage points faster than that of January-March; the online retail sales of physical goods accounted for 24.1% of the total retail sales of social consumer goods, an increase of 5.5 over the same period of the previous year percentage point. Among them, the food and consumer goods sold through the Internet increased by 36.7% and 12.4% year-on-year, respectively, and the growth rate was 4 and 2.4 percentage points faster than from January to March; the wearing goods decreased by 12% year-on-year, and the decrease rate was from January to March. Narrowed by 3.1 percentage points. According to data from the State Post Bureau, the current daily express delivery volume in China exceeds 200 million pieces and has basically returned to the pre-epidemic level. The volume of express delivery business in April is expected to be 6.25 billion pieces, a year-on-year increase of 27.0%.
Contactless, self-service retail and food delivery services are more popular with consumers. From January to April, the retail sales of supermarkets and warehousing member stores above designated size increased by 3.1% and 14.4% year-on-year, respectively, and the growth rate was 1.2 and 2.8 percentage points faster than in January-March. Although the catering industry has been significantly affected by the epidemic, catering services such as takeaways have recovered faster. In April, accommodation and catering companies above designated size achieved double-digit year-on-year growth in meal fee income through public networks, compared with a year-on-year decline in March.
Sales of most commodities continued to improve, and consumption upgrading commodities improved significantly
In April, among the retail value of 18 commodities of units above the designated size, 10 types of commodities achieved year-on-year growth or were flat, and 16 types of commodities improved compared with March.
The growth of basic life commodities was steady. In April, the retail sales of grain, oil and food commodities above designated size increased by 18.2% year-on-year, and continued to maintain rapid growth; the retail sales of beverages and daily necessities increased by 12.9% and 8.3% respectively, and the growth rate was 6.6 and 8 faster than that of March Percentage points.
Sales of consumption-upgrading commodities continued to improve. In April, the retail sales of communication equipment and cultural and office supplies of units above designated size increased by 12.2% and 6.5% year-on-year, respectively, and the growth rate was 5.7 and 0.4 percentage points faster than that of March; the retail sales of sports and entertainment supplies and cosmetics were respectively Increased by 11.6% and 3.5%, compared with a decline of 7.1% and 11.6% in March; gold, silver, and jewelry commodities fell by 12.1%, a decrease of 18 percentage points from March.
Sales of automotive products have improved significantly. Faced with the impact of the epidemic, the central and local governments issued a number of policies and measures to stabilize and promote automobile consumption, and the effect gradually showed. In April, the retail sales of automobiles of units above designated size were basically the same as the same month of the previous year, while in March it was a year-on-year decrease of 18.1%. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, automobile sales in April increased by 4.4% year-on-year and 43.5% sequentially. According to data from the China Automobile Dealers Association, the comprehensive sales of passenger cars in April decreased by 5.5% year-on-year, a sharp decrease of 34.5 percentage points from March.
The decline in residential commodities narrowed further. In April, the retail sales of household appliances and audio-visual equipment, furniture, and construction and decoration materials in units above designated size decreased by 8.5%, 5.4%, and 5.8% year-on-year, respectively, which were 21.2, 17.3, and 8.1 percentage points narrower than in March. .
Holiday consumption accelerated recovery, market vitality has increased
During the "May Day" period, the national market was active and the popularity rebounded, and the consumer market recovered rapidly. According to the monitoring of the Ministry of Commerce, from May 1 to May 5, the average daily sales of key retail enterprises increased by 32.1% compared with the Qingming holiday. According to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, from May 1 to 5, the country received a total of 115 million domestic tourists and realized domestic tourism revenue of 47.56 billion yuan; both the number of tourist visits and tourism income were better than the Qingming holiday.
On the whole, as the situation of epidemic prevention and control is further consolidated, the order of life is restored in an orderly manner, various consumption promotion policies continue to exert force, and part of the consumption that was suppressed in the previous period is gradually released. Market sales continued to improve in April. At the same time, the further consolidation of new consumption habits and consumption patterns formed during the epidemic prevention and control period will help promote the optimization and upgrading of the consumption structure and support the long-term stable development of the consumer market.