1.1% in October-growing retail but loses acceleration rate

Survey indicates that sales of the retail sector showed growth of 1.1% in October compared with the same period last year. The warm result was upheld, in part, by good performance in the children's day. The study, conducted by Mastercard, still points to the average of the last three months had a little slowdown, but remains positive, amounting to 0.9% growth. In the year to October, the total volume of retail sales in grows 1.7% compared to the same period in 2017. "We note that during the week preceding the commemorative date [day], trade sales had an expansion of 2.1% over the same period last year, which positively impacted the results of the month", argued the Chief Economist of MasterCard Advisors in Brazil, César Fukushima. According to the balance sheet, the prospect of growth remains modest growth for the next few months. Four sectors had high above the indicator of total sales: furniture and appliances, pharmaceutical articles and articles of personal use and household. However, the fuel segments, garments and supermarket showed below-average performance. In the comparison year against year, e-commerce sales recorded an increase of 9% in October, a slowdown when compared to the results of the last months of this year. The sectors of electronics, pharmaceutical and furniture items had above-average performance, while the sectors of clothing and hobby & Bookstore were below the channel's growth. The total volume of sales in 2018 in the e-commerce indicates 19.4% growth in comparison with 2017. Regarding the performance of each region of Brazil, the Northeast appears first, with high of 1.9%; followed by the Midwest (1.2%); the North remained stable (0.0%); the Southeast registered retraction (-0.5%) and the South (-0.1%) in the same period analyzed. Shopping centers according to a study conducted by Ibope, the flow of people in shopping malls in Brazil maintains the growth trajectory for the third consecutive month. The evolution in October was 2.6 percent compared with the same period in 2017. Already the malls of Sao Paulo showed advancement faster between the regions, while the enterprises of greater Recife remained the standard fall of the previous months.