Mass consumption does not lift: sales in supermarkets fell again in January

The deterioration in the purchasing capacity of Argentine households still does not show concrete recovery signs in the segment of the Mass consumption. And in recent months another factor was added that diverts domestic demand: the tourism boom and purchases abroad driven by exchange appreciation. Thus, according to the scope of sources in the sector, Sales in supermarkets fell again in January, even despite comparing a very poor reference base: that of the first full month of management of Javier Milei, in full inflationary flash.

The processing of mass consumption data last month was not yet ended at the close of this note. They will be published in the next few days by the consultant Scentia, who periodically measures the evolution of sales in large supermarket chains and in self -termination.

Consumption in supermarkets does not lift

In any case, different sources from the big chains advanced to this medium that, at least in this segment, sales continued their course down. According to a sector representative, The January year -on -year drop ranged between 5% and 6%.

At first glance, the number might seem lower since in December of last year Scentia measured an interannual collapse of 18% for mass consumption and 2024 closed with an unpublished accumulated setback of 13.9% compared to the previous year. However, in 2025, interannual comparisons will be made against the respective months of last year that left a very low reference base. Thus, any data that does not even imply a partial rebound will imply a bad signal.

In fact, January 2024 was the beginning of a string of interannual setbacks of mass consumption that covered every month of last year. On that occasion, Scentia relieved a year -on -year decrease of 3.8% compared to January 2023 for mass consumption. Although in the large supermarket chains the fall was even stronger: from 8.3% nationwide.

In this way, If it was confirmed that last month it closed with a decline greater than 5%, sales in supermarkets would have been located almost 15% below the level of January 2023 in real terms.

A different performance showed retail sales in SMEs surveyed by the Argentine Confederation of the Medium Enterprises (CAME). In January, 25.5% year -on -year grew. Although the data has two weight attenuators: on the one hand, the rebound failed to compensate for the collapse of January 28.5% 2024 and, according to the Came series, it followed 10.2% below the January level of January 2023; On the other, there was a 0.5% drop compared to December 2024 in the measurement without seasonality, that is, the trend remained negative.

What flourishes is the outside consumption on the horse of the incentive that generates the exchange rate appreciation. January closed with the stock of loans for dollar expenses with higher credit cards in history (US $ 864 million), A fact that does not include the operations that are carried out with other payment alternatives, such as Pix, which is booming in Brazil.

Consumption and inflation

The truth is that the progress of mass consumption shows that, Despite the slowdown in inflation measured by INDEC, households fail to recover purchasing capacity. It is good measure, this is a consequence of the growing weight of spending on services facing working families.

While not all, many of those services are essential or inelastic. And several of them increase above the general consumer price index (CPI) for long months.

For example, this Friday, the Institute of Statistics and Census of the City of Buenos Aires reported that inflation in Buenos Aires territory was 3.1% in January, although with great disparity: While the goods increased 1.4%, the services jumped 4.3%. Having different weights, this strong rise of services will not have the same impact on the National CPI, which INDEC will publish this Thursday.

In this way, even the workers whose salaries in the last year tied with the national CPI saw the portion of their income that goes in essential services and, therefore, have less money available to buy food, cleaning products, items from personal hygiene and other mass consumption goods.

However, the perspective is that, as the year progresses and year -on -year comparisons begin to be made against the most abrupt falls of 2024, the numbers of mass consumption rehearse a faint rebound. However, the sources consulted agree that there is no variable that allows a significant recovery to increase. The unwritten guideline set by the Government for parity negotiations seems to come to reinforce that perspective.