Shops in Germany are saying guten tag to a growing number of customers.
Retail sales in Europe’s largest economy bounced 13.9% in May from the previous month, according to seasonally adjusted data from the Federal Statistics Office. Sales were also up 3.9% from a year earlier—a simpler time when most people didn’t know what a coronavirus was. While Germany’s retail sales figures are highly volatile and could be revised, the data suggests the country’s consumption is on the mend.
Germany has benefitted from “more track and trace, fewer infections, shorter lockdowns and oddly, a sudden shopping craze,” Kit Juckes of Societe Generale wrote in an email. While it’s possible that data revisions will show that shoppers were less exuberant than first thought, Juckes noted that there’s also a growing chance the German economy could have more momentum than economists expected.