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ECONOMY

Retail sales surge

Retail sales in Germany, the biggest European economy, gained a surprise 6.3 percent in June, provisional figures released Friday showed.

Retail sales surge
Photo: DPA

Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a much more modest seasonally-adjusted increase of 1.7 percent from May, but economists agree that the indicator is volatile and subject to frequent revisions.

A statement issued by the Destatis national statistics office also noted that the result was affected by a change in the sample of companies that were polled.

The increase was still a sharp rebound from the month-on-month fall of 2.5 percent in May, however.

“While the May number was the worst in the last 10 years, the June number is the highest since 2007,” Commerzbank analyst Ulrike Rondorf noted.

On a 12-month basis, retail sales fell by 1.0 percent in June, but Destatis noted there were 24 business days in June 2011, compared with 26 in June 2010.

ING senior economist Carsten Brzeski felt the data “show that German consumers are finally waking up.”

“Of course, the rather discouraging track record of German retail sales is reason enough not to get overly excited,” Brzeski added.

The figures nonetheless “offer some glimmer of hope that at least the German economy is heading towards a soft, not hard, landing,” he said.

On a quarterly comparison, retail sales from April through June were 0.4 percent lower than in the first quarter, which Rondorf said “supports our expectation that German growth slowed considerably in the second quarter.”

In the six months from January through June meanwhile, sales gained 1.3 percent from the same period a year earlier, Destatis said.

German retail federation HDE has forecast an annualised gain of 1.5 percent for 2011 as a whole, but HDE president Josef Sankjohanser noted recently that “the traditionally strongest months for retail sales still lie ahead.”

AFP/mry

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SHOPPING

Danish stores to remove MobilePay from payment options

Over 500 shops in Denmark will no longer offer the popular app MobilePay as a payment option after the platform ordered merchants to purchase new hardware.

Danish stores to remove MobilePay from payment options

The Dagrofa corporation, which owns chains including the Meny and Spar supermarkets, has announced it will remove MobilePay as a payment option in its stores, business media Finans reports.

The decision could impact less than 1 percent of payments in the store which are currently made using MobilePay, the company said.

READ ALSO: 17 essential phone apps to make your life in Denmark easier

“The primary reason is that MobilePay will from now on demand a technical setup for the payment system in stores and with the investment that will neee, we have concluded that’s not the way we want to go,” Dagrofa’s head of communications Morten Vestberg told Finans.

Dagrofa owns the Let-Køb and Min Købmand convenience store chains in addition to Meny and Spar.

The decision will mean MobilePay is removed from some 530 stores altogether, although individual stores may choose to retain the payment app.

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