SYDNEY (Thomson Financial) - Retail sales amounted to 18.918 billion aud in May, a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent less than in April, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.
The market's consensus forecast was that retail sales would rise 0.7 percent.
In April, retail sales were a revised 0.3 pct lower than in March, the initial estimate having been that they were 0.1 percent higher.
Retail sales were 5.7 percent higher in May than they were a year before.
The greatest decrease in May was in sales of clothing and soft goods, which fell 2.2 percent, followed by sales of recreational goods, which fell 1.1 percent.
Sales of food slipped by 0.1 percent and sales of goods in the "other" category fell 0.1 percent.
But department store sales rebounded by 1.8 percent from a drop of 3.4 percent in April, and sales of household goods rose 0.1 percent.
The following figures are for retail sales in May, compared with the figures for April and March:
Adjusted - 18.918 billion aud vs 18.936 billion vs 19.002 billion
Trend - 19.022 billion aud vs 18.949 billion vs 18.866 billion
Original - 18.479 billion aud vs 17.941 billion vs 18.767 billion
(1 usd = 1.16 aud)
paul.daniel@thomson.com
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