{"id":126243,"date":"2026-04-24T10:41:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/?p=126243"},"modified":"2026-04-24T10:41:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:41:28","slug":"uk-retail-sales-defy-expectations-with-strong-march-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/uk-retail-sales-defy-expectations-with-strong-march-surge\/04\/24\/market-updates\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Retail Sales Defy Expectations with Strong March Surge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Headline beat:<\/strong> UK retail sales jumped 0.7% month-on-month in March, dramatically outperforming the 0.1% gain analysts had forecast.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Annual strength:<\/strong> Year-on-year retail sales climbed 1.7%, comfortably above the 1.3% expected by the market.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Excluding fuel:<\/strong> Monthly sales excluding fuel edged up 0.2%, topping predictions of no change from the previous month.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Mixed yearly picture:<\/strong> Annual sales excluding fuel also rose 1.7%, though this fell short of the 2.0% growth analysts had anticipated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>British consumers showed surprising resilience in March, with retail sales climbing 0.7% compared to the previous month and significantly outpacing market forecasts of a modest 0.1% increase, according to official figures released on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On a year-on-year basis, retail sales expanded by 1.7%, exceeding analyst projections of 1.3% growth and pointing to sturdier consumer spending than many economists had anticipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When stripping out fuel purchases, retail sales still managed a monthly gain of 0.2% in March \u2014 a slight improvement on the flat reading that had been expected. However, the yearly comparison for sales excluding fuel came in at 1.7%, undershooting the 2.0% forecast and suggesting that the broader spending picture remains somewhat uneven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Takeaways Headline beat: UK retail sales jumped 0.7% month-on-month in March, dramatically outperforming the 0.1% gain analysts had forecast. Annual strength: Year-on-year retail sales climbed 1.7%, comfortably above the 1.3% expected by the market. Excluding fuel: Monthly sales excluding fuel edged up 0.2%, topping predictions of no change from the previous month. Mixed yearly &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":33011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6827,37,36],"tags":[7202,10286,9848],"class_list":["post-126243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-daily-economic-reports","category-forex-markets","category-market-updates","tag-bank-of-england","tag-pill","tag-pmis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126244,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126243\/revisions\/126244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}