Cautious SA consumers are spending more on pharma goods, Mastercard survey shows
South Africans spent less on food and more on pharmaceuticals in April, according to credit and debit card issuer Mastercard.Mastercard released its monthly SpendingPulse survey for April shortly before Statistics SA was scheduled to release is retail sales figures for April at 1pm.Mastercard’s data showed annual spending growth of 3.7% in April from the same month in 2017, with an average annual inflation of 2.7 percentage points stripped out.Its figure is lower than the expected figure from Statistics SA of 4.1%, a slowdown of March’s 4.8% when sales were boosted by people shopping ahead of the increase in value-added tax (VAT) to 15%.If inflation is not stripped out, Mastercard said total retail sales grew 6.4%."Pharmaceutical, medical goods, cosmetics and toiletry sales excluding the effects of inflation increased by 5.7% year on year in April, while sales including the effects of inflation were up 9.1%. Higher prices contributed 3.4 percentage points sales growth in the sector,...
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