Singapore retail sales rise 2.7% in December 2025

SINGAPORE - Retail sales grew 2.7 per cent year on year in December 2025, moderating from a 6.2 per cent growth in November, with more than half of industries recording higher sales, according to data from the Singapore Department of Statistics released on Feb 5.

Excluding motor vehicles, retail sales grew by 1.7 per cent, continuing the 5.7 per cent growth in November 2025.

Within the retail trade sector, more than half of industries recorded year-on-year growth in sales in December 2025. Recreational goods recorded the highest year-on-year growth of 13.4 per cent, while sales for the computer and telecommunications equipment industry grew by 12.8 per cent.

In contrast, petrol service stations saw a year-on-year decrease in sales of 9.1 per cent, while retailers of food and alcohol saw a decrease of 7.1 per cent in December 2025.

The estimated total retail sales value in December 2025 was $4.8 billion. Of this, an estimated 14.8 per cent were from online retail sales,

lower than the 17 per cent recorded in November 2025, which had major online shopping events.

Excluding motor vehicles, the total retail sales value was about $4.1 billion, of which 17 per cent were from online retail sales. Online retail sales made up 56.5 per cent of the total sales of the computer and telecommunications equipment industry, 33.4 per cent for furniture and household equipment and 11.7 per cent for the supermarkets and hypermarkets industry.

The stronger performance in the second half of 2025 – a 4.3 per cent year-on-year rise compared with 1.1 per cent in the first half of 2025 – was mainly driven by healthy labour market conditions and supportive fiscal transfers in a SG60 year through SG60 and CDC vouchers, said DBS economist Chua Han Teng.

“However, retail sales growth moderated in December, easing to 2.7 per cent year on year from the robust 6.2 per cent year-on-year increase in November. This cooling was likely due to increased outbound travel by residents during the year-end school holidays and festive period. Residents travelling out of Singapore rose by 7.6 per cent year on year, reaching a new monthly record high of 1.4 million in December,” he added.

Sales of food and beverage (F&B) services increased 0.7 per cent in December 2025 on a year-on-year basis, extending the 2.5 per cent growth in November 2025.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales of F&B services fell 2.2 per cent in December 2025 compared with the previous month. The total sales value of F&B services in December 2025 was estimated at $1 billion. Of this, an estimated 25.8 per cent were from online sales, slightly higher than the 25.3 per cent recorded in November 2025.

Within the F&B services sector, food caterers registered a growth in sales of 5.4 per cent in December. Meanwhile, the sales of cafes, foodcourts and other eating places grew by 2.4 per cent during this period, while the sales of fast-food outlets rose by 3.1 per cent. In contrast, turnover of restaurants decreased 3.4 per cent in December.

December usually tends to be when many Singaporeans households go on year-end holidays, but the mitigating factor is the international visitor arrivals due to the seasonal festive celebrations such as Christmas, said Ms Selena Ling, chief economist at OCBC Bank.

This brought fourth-quarter 2025 retail sales growth to 4.4 per cent year on year, the highest since the first quarter of 2023, said Ms Ling.

Looking ahead, Mr Chua said: “In the near term, we expect retail sales to remain supported by continued labour market resilience, additional CDC vouchers distributed in January 2026, and festive-related spending for the Lunar New Year.”

He added that this is in spite of the typical volatility observed in the first quarter of the year.