Food retail sales in Hungary rose by 4.8%, in volume terms, in October 2024, new data from KSH, the Hungarian statistics office, has shown.
Supermarkets and grocery stores, which account for 76% of food retailing, reported sales growth of 5.1% in the period, while specialised food, beverage and tobacco stores reported sales growth of 3.9%.
Non-food retailing reported a 3.3% increase in volume sales in October, driven by growth in pharmaceutical and cosmetic goods (9.4%) and furniture and electrical goods (4.8%).
Online retailing was also up in the period, reporting a 1.3% increase in volume, to account for 8.2% of all retail sales.
Automotive fuel retailing remained flat, with motor vehicle-related sales growing by 4.4%.
Overall Retail Sales
Overall, retail sales in Hungary in October reported a 3.6% increase, compared to the same month last year, and a 1.2% rise from September, based on calendar-adjusted data, KSH noted.
In terms of the period from January to October 2024, volume sales went up by 2.8%, with food retail up by 3.9%, non-food retail up by 2.4%, and automotive fuel sales up by 0.5%.
Total domestic retail sales in October reached HUF 1,684 billion (€4.08 billion), with food stores contributing 49% of this turnover, 36% coming from non-food retail, and 15% from automotive fuel.
Labour Market
Earlier this week, ING noted that the labour market in Hungary remains ‘tight’, as the year draws to a close. Hungary’s unemployment rate stayed stable, at 4.6%, for the August-October 2024 period.
According to ING, this indicates that the number of unemployed individuals in Hungary is between 220,000 and 225,000.
“The detailed data shows that, in October, the number of persons in employment fell minimally and within the margin of error, while, at the same time, the number of inactive persons fell slightly,” commented ING analysts Peter Virovacz and Kinga Havasi.
