Norway
- March – up by 12.2 percent (1 extra trading day and additional retail floor space/projects)
- Accumulated Q1 – up by 5.4 percent (same number of trading days and increased retail floor space)
Best performers were Specialist Shops, which also include Sports. Food and Drink also enjoyed a good quarter.
Sweden
- March – up by 17.1 percent (some increased retail floor space)
- Accumulated Q1 – up by 14.4 percent (some increased retail floor space)
Best performers were Catering and Clothing
Denmark
- March – up by 8.1 percent (one additional shopping centre – correcting for this, the increase is 5.4 percent.)
- Accumulated Q1 – up by 0.5 percent (one additional shopping centre – correcting for this, the increase is 5.4 percent.)
Common to all three countries is a relatively weak start to the year, which then gradually improved. Category “Clothing” has shown the best development.
It will be interesting to see in April how persistent this trend of steadily more positive trade really is.
The important thing to watch out in April for will be the effect of Easter falling early in the month. This produces a time gap between Easter and payday when the public have less money in their hands. We are also looking to see how the volcanic ash affair will affect local trading. It is clear that it has hurt travel and thus also duty-free shopping.