An activity report prepared by the Chamber of Commerce correspondent to the third quarter of the year indicated that the sector’s sales managed to stabilize in that period with an increase of 0.9% in the year-on-year measurement and thus reversed a cdrop of 5% that had been registered in the second quarter.
The behavior of the sales of the different items was uneven. Of the 15 surveyed, six had a year-on-year increase and nine showed a retraction. Also by companies the performance had disparity. Of the more than 400 companies consulted, only 30% responded that they had had a increase in actual sales between July and September of this year in relation to the same period of 2021.
The survey indicated that within the commercial sector there was evidence of a consolidation of a recessive scenario in several areas, such as the case of Construction materialshardware stores and paint with a drop of 5.2%, personal care 7.3%, convenience stores 5.9% and home accessories of 2.2%.
In the opposite direction, supermarkets had a sales growth of 2.7%, home appliances 5.9%, computing 8.2% and toys 3.6%. These items reversed a drop observed in the previous quarter and with the current performance it can “adventured as a positive sign to be able to close the year with real sales volumes above the records of the previous year,” said the chamber’s report.
Sales in stores
Regarding the services sector, the union commented that although it remains in a recessive phase of 0.4%, the good performance of the item was highlighted Travel agencies, with an increase in sales of 28.9%. This rise was basically explained by the relationship of favorable prices of the local economy, both in the regional and extra-regional comparison. In the opposite sense, the items hotels, restaurants and sweet shopsconfirmed a scenario of low activity in the quarter with a decrease in sales of 5.6% and 0.4%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2021.
Regarding the size of the companies, the survey indicated that both micro, small and medium-sized companies maintained their recessive phase in the quarter. In particular, the largest drop in sales was verified in microenterprises with 9.9%. Large companies, for their part, managed to reverse this trend and reached a year-on-year increase of 2.4%.
Entrepreneurs were also consulted about their short term expectations. Those expectations remained practically unchanged with a slightly less optimistic scenario compared to previous records. 40% of businessmen surveyed expect sales growthyes, a 46% expect a stagnation scenario and, finally, 14% anticipate that their sales will suffer in the last quarter of the year compared to the same period of the previous year.
The report indicated that the best scenarios in terms of expectations regarding the future behavior of real sales were recorded in companies in the hotels, restaurants and confectionery sectors, probably associated with seasonal reasons. The other item with good sales expectations is household appliances, in this case as a result of the celebration of the Qatar World Cup 2022.
