European retail's FMCG sector has recorded its strongest growth in two years.
According to Nielsen, the global information and measurement company, the value of FMCG sales rose in the second quarter of this year by 3.8 per cent. The growth is due in part to elevations in price (+2.2 per cent), and in part to a sales volume increase of 1.6 per cent.
One must go back to the first quarter of 2012 to find a grander level of growth (+4.7 per cent).
"Inflation," Jean-Jacques Vandenheede, Nielsen's European retail analysis director stated, is at its lowest level in the years," alluding to the figure of 2.1 per cent, which was the rate at the beginning of 2011.
He noted that Easter, which always causes a surge in the FMCG market, played a part in the strong second-quarter performance: "it normally accounts for about 1 per cent of sales", Vandenheede said.
"The FMCG sector is in very good condition, and things are improving. The worst seems to have past. [. . .] We can predict that Europe will experience growth of 2 per cent in the next quarter."
Of the 21 countries studied, Turkey recorded the strongest growth (+12.7 per cent), followed by Hungary (+6.4 per cent) and Norway (+2.2 per cent). The weakest three performers were Ireland (+1.7 per cent), Greece (?1.1 per cent) and Finland (?1.1 per cent).
© 2014 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article written by Peter Donnelly
