U.S. apparel and home furnishing retail sales and imports in January 2024

Apparel retail sales stabilize and household consumption picks up. The latest data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that U.S. CPI fell to 3.1% in January from 3.4% in December last year. The core CPI excluding energy and food was 3.9% year-on-year. Overall, inflation is still declining steadily. channel, but the magnitude of the slowdown may be weaker than market expectations formed in the fourth quarter of 2023.According to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, following the strong performance driven by the Christmas season in 2023, U.S. retail sales fell by 0.8% month-on-month in January, the largest decline since March last year, and still increased by 0.6% year-on-year.U.S. consumption growth in the first quarter may continue the marginal cooling trend since the fourth quarter of 2023. Overall, U.S. consumption growth is still solid, but it may have begun to cool down from the previous warm level.Clothing and apparel stores: Retail sales in January were US$26.55 billion, down 0.2% from the previous month and up 0.5% from the same period last year.Furniture and home furnishing stores: Retail sales in January were US$11.07 billion, a month-on-month increase of 1.5% and a decrease of 9.8% compared with the same period last year.General stores (including supermarkets and department stores): Retail sales in January were US$73.94 billion, unchanged from the previous month and an increase of 0.9% from the same period last year.Among them, department store retail sales were US$11 billion, an increase of 0.5% month-on-month and a year-on-year decrease of 6.7%.Non-physical retailers: Retail sales in January were US$118.39 billion, down 0.8% from the previous month and up 6.4% from the same period last year.2. Inventory-to-sales ratio declined steadily In December, the inventory/sales ratio of U.S. apparel and apparel stores was 2.29, down 2.1% from the previous month; the inventory/sales ratio of furniture, home furnishing and electronics stores was 1.53, unchanged from the previous month.3. The decline in imports narrowed and China’s share stabilized. U.S. imports rebounded sharply in January. Total imports increased by 10% year-on-year. Imports from Asia increased by 14% and imports from China increased by 19%. This was mainly due to the increase in U.S. imports from China in January 2023. The year-on-year decline was the largest, so the growth rebound in January this year was also the largest.However, from the perspective of total import volume, imports from China in January this year only increased slightly by 2% compared with January 2019, which shows that China’s proportion of the overall imports of the United States is gradually declining.Textile and clothing: From January to December, the United States imported US$121.74 billion in textile and clothing, a year-on-year decrease of 21.8%, which was slightly narrower than the decrease in the previous 11 months by 0.6 percentage points.Imports from China were US$31.39 billion, down 25.2%; accounting for 25.8%, a year-on-year decrease of 1.2 percentage points, and the same proportion as in the previous November.Imports from Vietnam were US$16.06 billion, down 23.2%; accounting for 13.2%, down 0.2 percentage points.Imports from India were US$10.16 billion, a decrease of 19.2%; accounting for 8.3%, an increase of 0.2 percentage points.Textiles: From January to December, the United States imported US$34.73 billion in textiles, a year-on-year decrease of 18.4%, 1 percentage point narrower than the decline in the previous 11 months.Imports from China were US$12.98 billion, a decrease of 23.1%; accounting for 37.4%, a year-on-year decrease

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