Vehicle spending up by $5m
Retail card spending on motor vehicles increased by $5 million – or 2.6 per cent – to $194m last month, when compared with the numbers seen in December 2024.
However, the industry’s seasonally adjusted figure for December was the fourth-lowest monthly amount recorded in the past year, according to new figures from Stats NZ.
The total also fell by $3.5 million, or 1.8 per cent, when compared with the numbers seen in November 2025 as motor vehicles was among four of the six retail categories to record a month-on-month decline.
The latest seasonally adjusted values from Stats NZ show overall spending in the retail industries fell by $7.6m, or 0.1 per cent, between November and December last year.
Fuel and hospitality were the only sectors on the up during that period. The former rose $5.5m and 1.1 per cent, while hospitality spending increased by $21m, or 1.4 per cent.
In actual terms, cardholders made 195 million transactions across all industries in December, with an average value of $58 per transaction. The total amount spent using cards was $11 billion.
As for the December 2025 quarter, retail card spending on motor vehicles was down $14m, or 2.3 per cent, from the figures achieved in the September quarter.
The seasonally adjusted total came in at $584m, making it the joint second-lowest quarter of the past four years.
Overall spending in the retail industries for the last three months of 2025 totalled $20.8 billion. This was an increase of $98m, or 0.5 per cent, from the previous quarter.
