05.02.201823:51:00UTC+00UK Retail Sales Increase In January: BRC

UK retail sales increased in January as rising food prices inflated spending, data from the British Retail Consortium showed Tuesday.

Retail sales increased 0.6 percent on a like-for-like basis in January from the previous year, when they had decreased 0.6 percent. On a total basis, sales rose 1.4 percent in January.

Over the three months to January, in-store sales of non-food items declined 2.9 percent on a total basis and 3.6 percent on a like-for-like basis.

On the other hand, food sales grew 2.9 percent on a like-for-like basis and 4.1 percent on a total basis.

The figures paint the same old picture of divided fortunes for food and non-food sales, Helen Dickinson, chief executive at BRC, said.

Rising food prices continued to inflate sales growth and absorb the lion's share of shoppers' squeezed budgets, while sales of non-food items struggled in January, dragging the 12-month average into negative territory for the first time in nine years, Dickinson noted.