The View 7th edition

RETAIL MARKET

36

ANITA CSÖRGŐ Director , Head of Advisory & Transaction Services, Retail

CONSISTENT INCREASE STRONGLY CONTRIBUTE TO GDP GROWTH Throughout 2018, there has been an overall upward trend in Hungarian retail sales across most of the commodity groups. Sales volumes registered an annual growth of 6.3% (seasonally unadjusted) up to end of November. Based on the recent expansionary cycle, December is also projected to trend around the same level. Strong retail sales growth was primarily supported by the continuous improvement in the F&B and automotive fuel sectors, along with the substantially increasing customer appetite for furniture and electronic goods. Sales in these categories expanded by ca. 4.5%, 6.5% and 8.4% y-o-y, respectively. Like in previous years, the steep increase in e-commerce also proved to be sustainable during the past 11 months, showing an extreme 26% growth y-o-y, however, the sector’s proportion still has not reached the EU average. Looking ahead, domestic and tourism fundamentals remain solid and retail sales continue to grow in 2019 – although at a somewhat more moderate pace than in 2018. Nevertheless, a “hard Brexit” could negatively affect the domestic retail market as several important omnichannel retailers were originally founded in the United Kingdom. A measurable downturn in China also puts luxury fashion retailers under serious pressure all around the world, which could also be considered a potential drag on growth.

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Budapest

Other cities

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Retail Completion and Pipeline

Source: CBRE Research