BRAZIL – According to data published by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), industrial production and retail sales volume in the furniture sector have each fallen 17.1% in the twelve months accumulated as of March 31st, 2016.

Furniture industrial production presents a performance well below the performance of the industry in general, that also decreased, but by 9.7%. With the 17.1% drop, furniture retail sales also underperformed against overall retail trade that recorded a decline of 5.8% in the accumulated twelve months to March 31st, 2016.

In the first quarter of 2016 and against the same period last year, the drop in industrial production in the furniture sector was 15.8%. In the same period the volume of furniture retail sales fell 12.2%. A period in which the Brazilian industry reported an 11.7% drop and the volume of total retail trade fell 7.0%.

The behavior of retail sales of the furniture sector can be attributed to reduced credit availability and rising interest rates in consumer credit. This impact on demand reflects in production output.

Brazil: Indicators of the Volume of Sales Of the Retail Trada and Extended Retail Trade

According to Groups of Activities: PMC – March 2016