18/8/2012: Irish Services Activity June 2012 & Q2 2012

Some interesting stats for Q2 2012 and June on Services sector activity in Ireland from CSO.

Headline stuff:

• The seasonally adjusted monthly services value index declined 1.3% in June 2012 m/m and there was an annual increase of 5.6%.
• Transportation and Storage (+4.6%), Other Services (+0.8%) and Accommodation and Food Service Activities (+0.1%) showed m/m increases in June 2012. 
• Wholesale and Retail Trade (-3.4%), Information and Communication (-2.7%) and Business Services (-0.3%) showed m/m decreases.
• Transportation and Storage (+14.7%), Information and Communication (+13.5%), Other Services (+4.5%) and Wholesale and Retail Trade (+3.2%) showed y/y increases in June 2012 when compared with June 2011. 
• Accommodation and Food Service Activities (-2.0) and Business Services (-0.3%) showed y/y decreases.
• Overall June monthly reading is the second highest in the series (since October 2009) with y/y growth in June at third highest since October 2010

Charts:

And Q2 2012 results (a bit more descriptive) are:

• Overall Services Sector activity is up 2.6% in Q2 2012 compared to Q1 2012 and up 5.2% on Q2 2011 - solid results.
• Wholesale & Retail Trade and repairs of vehicles & motorcycles services index is at 108.4 - up 0.5% q/q and 4/5% y/y, primarily driven by Wholesale Trade services (up 1.2% q/q and 10.7% y/y).
• Information and Communication services index is up 2.2% q/q, and up 11.5% y/y in Q2 2012.
• Business Services up 3.3% q/q, but down 0.5% y/y marking a third consecutive quarter of y/y contractions, albeit at much slower pace than -2.1% recorded in Q1 2012.
• Transportation and Storage services were up 9.2% q/q and up 13.4% y/y in Q2 2012.
• Accommodation and Food services were up 1.5% q/q, but down 2.6% y/y. Q2 2012 marked the fourth consecutive quarter of y/y contractions in the sub-index.
• Other services posted a rise of 4% q/q and 1.6% y/y, breaking the 5 consecutive quarters of y/y declines.

So nicely solid results from the sector, albeit subject to some caveats due to the nature of the data series.