“The key factor affecting sale in March was the calendar effect – last year Easter fell out in March (with an additional commercial Sunday), this year in April. Shift is hard reduced food sales (-9.4 percent yaws)at the same time he will probably conquer her next month. After cleansing the impact of seasonal factors, sales increased by 1.0 percent. yardwhich shows that the improvement of consumer activity persists, though on a limited scale, “said the economists of the Bank PKO BP.
They indicated that the high increase in car sales visible in the sales structure confirms the improvement of national demand in the automotive industry. They added that this improvement can also be seen in the data about automotive production, which in March increased by 9.1 percent. And they assessed that “both demand and production data indicate the expected reflection in this sector, hoping that it would persist in the following months.” They drew attention to a high increase in furniture, electronics and household appliances. According to them, the growing interest in permanent goods may be related to expectations of interest rate reductions.
“The prospects for the following months are carefully optimistic. The foundations of growth remain solid supported by the increase in real income. Although interest rate reduction is expected, their real level is still relatively high, which limits the rapid acceleration of demand” – said economists of PKO BP.
They added that also an increase in the importance of services in household expenses may limit the rate of sales growth.
“Data for the first quarter of 2025 show that GDP growth could have been slightly weaker than we assumed. Our current respect currently indicates 2.0 percent-2.5 percent growth dynamics. yard. However, we treat this as a shift of activity to the next quarters, so for now we do not see the need to revise GDP forecasts for the whole year ” – said economists of PKO BP. Higher forecasts, however, have the analysts of Bank Pekao.
Pekao forecasts
GDP growth was +3.2 percent RDR in the first quarterincluding private consumption by 3 percent RDR at this time – the economists of Bank Pekao estimate.
“At the end of a glance, for sale in an assembled basis. In this version, sales increased in March by 1.9 percent. MDM, Thus equalizing most of the losses from the previous month, which in our opinion is weak, “they say. This is as you can see higher forecasts than PKO BP (+1 percent in March).
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“The entire quarter closes with an increase in sales by 1.1 percent. RDR, which is a fairly weak but not catastrophic result. Based on the data available for today We estimate that private consumption in the first quarter of this year. It increased by approx. 3 percent yard (consumption is practically insensitive at the time of Easter!). After the March Pack of Monthly Data, we assess that The Polish economy has grown in the first quarter by 3.2 percent. yardslightly below the original assumptions (3.5 percent), mainly due to the slower than the assumed start of the investment ” – we read in the bank's commentary to GUS data.
It was indicated that in the case of retail sales in March this year. Two factors influenced consumer behavior: late Easter, lowering food sales, and reflection of the sale of permanent goods.
“That's why we perceive this reading as a positive and broken from the general March sadness” – we read further.
“In general, Easter can be attributed to up to 2-3 percentage points of sales dynamics during this period and it is a factor that can mask trends in all other sales categories”-explained.
Economists estimate that in March, in the case of retail sales, the biggest disappointment is to preserve the “others” category (i.e. usually construction stores), where a decrease in March was recorded by 12.2 percent. rdr. “If it wasn't for this, consensus and we would find sales at the point,” assess Pekao economists.
