German retail sales rise less than expected in December

(Sharecast News) - German retail sales rose slightly less than expected in December, increasing by 0.1% compared with the previous month, preliminary data showed on Monday. Economists had predicted a month-on-month increase of 0.2%.

For 2025 as a whole, retail sales increased by 2.7% year on year adjusted for inflation, according to final figures released by the Federal Statistics Office, a rise of 0.3 percentage points from the estimate published on January 7.

"After a significant increase in real retail sales in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period of the previous year (+3.8%), growth slowed in the second half of 2025 (+1.7%)," it added.

"The increase in the first half of 2025 can be attributed, among other things, to a one-off effect from the restructuring of a large online and mail-order company in August 2024, which resulted in previously unrecorded sales in Germany."

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com