2025.09.2906:22:19UTC+00Norway Retail Sales Growth Cools in August

In August 2025, Norway experienced a 0.2% month-over-month increase in retail sales, which marks a deceleration from July's upwardly revised growth rate of 0.7%. This slowdown can be attributed to declines in various sectors, most notably in other retail within non-specialised stores, which fell by 3.8% compared to a previous increase of 5% in July. Additionally, sales of ICT equipment dropped by 1.9%, a change from the 1% growth recorded in the previous month, and non-specialised stores overall saw a decrease of 1.4% following a 1.5% rise in July. Transaction levels for automotive fuel and food, beverages, and tobacco also decreased by 0.6% and 0.2%, respectively, compared to the prior month's figures of -0.8% for automotive fuel and 0.7% for food, beverages, and tobacco. Despite these downturns, the declines were counterbalanced by notable improvements in sales of other household equipment, which saw a 1.9% increase up from 0.5%, and cultural and recreational goods, with a 2.8% gain following a previous decrease of 2.2%. There was also more tempered growth observed in other goods, which increased by 1.5%, slightly down from July's 1.7%. Annually, retail trade rose by 5%, a slight decrease from July’s reading of 5.1%, which represented the strongest growth since May 2021.