Spending steady on vehicles

Retail card spending on motor vehicles only suffered a slight drop last month, falling $200,000 or 0.1 per cent when compared to April this year.

The seasonally adjusted figures from Stats NZ show the amount spent in the sector with electronic retail cards came in at $209 million in May. However, this was up from $206m in the same month of the previous year.

In actual terms, $215m was spent on motor vehicles last month, which was up 4.9 per cent from $205m a year ago.

The latest monthly tally was also higher than the $186m recorded in April 2023 and the second largest so far this year, only being eclipsed by the $230m achieved in March.

Stats NZ says total retail card spending fell $113m, or 1.7 per cent, between April and May when adjusted for seasonal effects.

All retail industries recorded a month-on-month drop and there were falls in all the non-retail categories, except for services.

The largest contributor to the drop in spending was fuel, down $25m, or 4 .5 per cent to $531m.

Ricky Ho, business performance manager, says: “This is the first time since December 2022 that only one industry saw a rise in spending, and the first time since February this year that total card spending fell.”

When it comes to actual values, spending on electronic cards totalled $6.4 billion, up $203m, or 3.3 per cent, from May 2022.