“Australian retail sales surged past all expectations in November as consumers splashed out on Apple iPhones and Black Friday promotions, a major boost for an economy that had been struggling with sluggish spending,” Wayne Cole reports for Reuters. “The local dollar jumped almost half a U.S. cent to a three-month peak of $0.7882 as the strength countered concerns consumers had lapsed into a near-permanent depression.”
“Thursday’s figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed retail sales jumped 1.2 percent in November from October, when they rose a solid 0.5 percent,” Cole reports. “That was three times the market forecast and the steepest gain since early 2013.”
“Sales were up 2.9 percent on a year earlier at a record seasonally adjusted high of A$26.38 billion ($20.77 billion). Gains were led by a hefty 4.5 percent rise in household goods and a 2.2 percent increase for other retailing,” Cole reports. “‘Seasonally adjusted sales in both these industries are influenced by the release of the iPhone X and the increasing popularity of promotions in November, including Black Friday sales,’ the ABS said in a note.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: According to the latest smartphone OS data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, in the three months ending November 2017, Apple’s iOS held 43.9% share of the Australian smartphone operating system market, down 2.5% YOY and Android held 55.5% share, up 5.4% YOY.
We’ll see if iOS share this picks up for Apple in Australia in future Kantar reports.