Spending on cars slides

Retail card spending on vehicles fell by $2 million last month when compared with August this year and totalled $199m after being adjusted for seasonal effects.

The 0.9 per cent drop also meant it was the first month Kiwi consumers had spent less than $200m on the industry using electronic cards since October 2021, when the seasonally adjusted total was $189m.

However, Stats NZ’s latest figures show the September tally for vehicles was up by $48m from just $151m in the same month a year earlier.

The actual value for last month was $201m, which was $51m or 34.4 per cent more than in September 2021.

On a quarterly basis, the seasonally adjusted amount spent on vehicles using retail cards came to $604m in the three months to the end of September this year. 

This represents a 0.8 per cent drop from the June quarter when the total reached $609m, but it was 24.5 per cent higher than the September quarter of 2021 when it was $485m.

Vehicles and durables were the only retail categories to record month-on-month declines between August and September this year as overall card spending rose by 1.4 per cent, when adjusted for seasonal effects.

The largest dollar increase came from consumables, such as supermarket groceries and liquor, which were up $20m or 0.8 per cent. For fuel, the increase was $11m or two per cent to hit $600m last month.

In actual terms, total card spending reached $8.6 billion, up 32.9 per cent from September 2021.

Meanwhile, seasonally adjusted card spending for all retail industries in the September quarter totalled $18.3b, an increase of $312m or 1.7 per cent from the previous quarter.

The fuel sector had one of the biggest increases as spending jumped by $291m or 16.4 per cent to just under $2b.