UK retail sales plunge as weather curbs spending

London - UK retail sales plunged the most in more than a year in December as mild weather dampened clothing demand and early discounting boosted spending the previous month.

The volume of sales including fuel fell 1%, the biggest drop since September 2014, the Office for National Statistics said in London on Friday. Sales jumped 1.3% in November, boosted by Black Friday promotions.

Sales of clothing, shoes and textiles plunged 6.2% in December, and the decline in total sales was bigger than the 0.3% economists had forecast.

Britain remains heavily dependent on domestic demand and the underlying picture in the latest data still point to strength in consumer spending. On an annual basis, sales have risen for 32 straight months and the 4.6% growth seen in 2015 was the most since 2004.

With UK inflation close to zero, spending is being underpinned by growth in real wages. Retail prices, measured by the annual deflator, fell 3.2% in December. Excluding fuel, they fell 2.5%, the most on record.

The ONS also said that retail sales excluding fuel fell 0.9% in December from November and were up 2.1% compared with a year earlier.