The corrosive power of inflation
is having its correlation in a notable drop in demand.
This is shown by sales in different areas of consumption, from supermarkets to fuel, which show how much people's purchasing power is suffering.
Some private consulting firms predict that in 2024 consumption will end with
a decline of 7%.
Something that would occur within the framework of a drop in the level of activity of 2.8%, as estimated by the IMF.
On the other hand, analysts from the economic consultancy MAP explain, "the contraction in consumption is confirmed by tax
collection data
, where DGI VAT revenues (linked to internal sales) fell on average 11% year-on-year in recent years. two months".
In mass consumption, the consulting firm Scentia has preliminary sales data (
only in supermarkets) that shows a drop of 9%
.
“It came with a drop level of 11% and it rebounded a little in recent days, but
the trend is clearly contrary to what was happening until December
,” says Osvaldo del Río, president of that consultancy.
In January, sales in supermarkets would have fallen 9%.
Photo Marcelo Carroll
According to the data managed by the retail businesses grouped in CAME, the year began with a poor performance in the sector "marked by few transactions and a
low influx of public in the premises
." Small businesses experienced
a decrease of 28.5%
in compared to the same period of the previous year. And at a seasonally adjusted inter-monthly level, the decrease was 6.4%.
In this context, analyst Damian Di Pace, director of the consulting firm Focus Market, predicts: “There are services such as
prepaid, telephony, transportation, rentals
that are more inflexible to their adjustment or reduction, which is why
they will end up limiting the surplus of substitute income. for the acquisition of goods in February
as well,” he says.
In practice, prepaid fees have already begun to intimidate users.
A recent survey by the consulting firm D'Alessio Irol detected that
70% of prepaid medicine users are considering making changes to their current health coverage due to increases.
Of them, 26% are considering
abandoning their current provider
for other private coverage and
10% are evaluating the possibility of depending exclusively on the public health system.
“The impact of price increases does not discriminate and is affecting all middle income levels.
Those with greater resources look for alternatives in other prepaid companies that offer similar plans, but in the lower-middle socioeconomic segment, 18% could be forced to
abandon the prepaid medicine system completely,”
the survey noted.
Other indicators of the drop in demand can be seen at first glance in the
low influx of consumers to shopping malls.
Also in
fuel sales,
which after the abrupt increases registered
a decrease of 20% in the first month of the year,
according to the service stations grouped in CECHA.
Few inquiries at dealerships in January.
Photo Enrique García Medina
The cut in expenses was also experienced in
car purchases.
According to data from the Argentine Dealers Association (Acara), in January patents were
49.3% lower than in the same month last year.
"Something that happened, according to the sector, due to the erosion in the purchasing power of consumers, the uncertainty of prices, the lack of some models and the changes in the luxury tax that - in many cases - postponed the purchase decision," explained a source.
In the
Construction sector, also the sale of materials,
which had been growing in September and October due to fear of the coming devaluation, deepened its fall in January, after having also fallen in December.
The Construya Index (IC), which measures the evolution of the volumes sold to the private sector of these products,
fell 19.6% in the monthly seasonally adjusted measurement and was 29.2% below January 2023
.
NE