Retail sales climb 4.0% YoY in August

Month-on-month, sales improved by 1.7%.

Retail sales grew 4.0% YoY and 1.7% MoM in August, translating to a sales value of $4b.

Of the total sales value, 12.2% was from online sales.

Excluding motor vehicles, which saw a 6.4% YoY increase, sales would’ve increased by 3.7% YoY and 1.9% MoM.

Department of Statistics Singapore (Singstat) attributed the year-on-year uptick to increases in sales of most industries.

Apart from motor vehicles, industries which recorded a sales increase in August include Food & Alcohol (+24.1% YoY); Cosmetics, Toiletries & Medical Goods (+6.5% YoY); Optical Goods & Books (+0.7% YoY); Supermarkets and Hypermarkets (+1.1% YoY); Wearing Apparel & Footwear (+6.7% YoY); Watches & Jewellery (+6.4% YoY); Mini-marts & Convenience Stores (+8.8% YoY); and Computer & Telecommunications Equipment (+7.9% YoY).

On the other hand, Department Stores (-5.2% YoY), Furniture & Household Equipment (-0.8% YoY); and Petrol Service Stations (-2.7% YoY) recorded a decline in sales.

Follow the link for more news on

Department of Statistics

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia