Discount Sales Dip, But No Cause For Alarm

South Korean discount retail sales dropped by 13.4% year-on-year (y-o-y) in January. However, the decline, based on the popular measure of monitoring sales at the country's leading three discount chains, should not be cause to question BMI's view that a sharp V-shaped economic recovery is underway in South Korea. Indeed, with department stores registering a 4.8% y-o-y sales increase, the drop in discount store sales can be attributed to the base effects of the lunar new year falling in January in 2009 and February in 2010, rather than any adverse macroeconomic

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