Shopping, cars, prepaid cards, petrol and supermarkets: areas in which the recession is already starting to make itself felt

The corrosive power of inflation has its correlation in a notable decline in demand. This is demonstrated by sales in various areas of consumption, from supermarkets to fuel, which show how much people’s purchasing power is suffering.

Some private consultancy firms predict that consumption will end in 2024 a drop of 7%. This would come amid a decline in the level of activity of 2.8%, according to IMF estimates.

On the other hand, explain the analysts of the economic consultancy firm MAP, “the contraction in consumption is confirmed by collection data fiscal, where DGI VAT revenues (linked to domestic sales) have fallen by an average of 11% year-on-year over the past two months.

In mass consumption, the consultancy Scentia has preliminary data on sales (only in supermarkets) which recorded a drop of 9%. “It occurred with a decline of 11% and has seen a slight rebound in the last few days, but “The trend is clearly contrary to what happened until December”says Osvaldo del Río, president of that consultancy firm.

According to data managed by the retail trade companies grouped in CAME, the year opened with a disappointing performance in the sector “characterised by few transactions and a low influx of public into the venues”. Small businesses with experience a drop of 28.5% compared to the same period of the previous year. And on a seasonally adjusted quarterly basis, the decline was 6.4%.

In this context, analyst Damian Di Pace, director of the consultancy firm Focus Market, predicts: “There are similar services prepaid, telephony, transport, rentals who are more rigid in their adjustment or reduction, that’s why will end up limiting the surplus of replacement income for the purchase of goods in February too,” he says.

In practice, prepaid tariffs have already begun to intimidate users. This was revealed by a recent investigation by the consultancy firm D’Alessio Irol 70% of prepaid drug users are considering changing their current health coverage due to the increases. Of them, 26% are thinking about it leave your supplier current for other private coverage e 10% consider the possibility of depending exclusively on the public health system.

“The impact of the price increase is non-discriminatory and affects all average income levels. Those with more resources look for alternatives in other prepaid companies that offer similar plans, but in the lower-middle socioeconomic segment 18% may be forced to do so completely abandon the prepaid healthcare system,” the survey indicated.

Other indicators of declining demand can be observed with the naked eye in lto the low influx of consumers in shopping centres. Even in himsale of fuel, than after the sharp increases recorded a 20% drop in the first month of the year, according to the service stations grouped in the CECHA.

Spending cuts also occurred car purchases. According to data from the Argentine Traders Association (Acara), there were patents in January 49.3% less than those of the same month last year. “Something that has happened, according to the industry, due to the erosion of consumer purchasing power, price uncertainty, the lack of some models and changes in the luxury tax which – in many cases – have postponed the purchasing decision,” a source explained.

In the field of Construction, including sale of materials, which had risen in September and October due to fear of an imminent devaluation, accentuated its decline in January, after also falling 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 seasonally adjusted monthly measure and was 29.2% lower than January 2023.