container ship

 

Consumer spending data released by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows no recent spike in consumer spending, supporting the view that the early peak season for container shipping is driven by pre-emptive imports and is not a sign of a surge in consumer spending.

At the highest level, the data is broken down into ‘goods’ and ‘services’. ‘Goods’ is further broken down into ‘durable goods’ and ‘nondurable goods’.

The figure shows year-on-year (Y/Y) growth in both durables and nondurables over the past three years.

 

the Y/Y growth in US consumer spending

 

Y/Y growth in spending on durables showed a sharp decline in early 2024 and, although it has rebounded, has not yet returned to the growth levels seen in 2023. In the case of non-durables, growth has been steadily increasing since late 2022.

“What is however abundantly clear here, is that there has not been a sudden surge in consumer spending in late spring/early summer 2024,” noted Sea-Intelligence, a Danish shipping data analytics company.

Furthermore, the only sub-category of ‘goods’ that shows any significant increase in its share of consumer spending is ‘goods and recreation’, with its share of total spending on goods rising from an average of 10.2% in 2019 to 15.1% by June 2024.

Looking into the components under this sub-section, we find that the major driver of this growth is ‘information processing equipment’, and more specifically ‘computer software and accessories’. Since these components do not move in containers, this boost to consumer spending in the ‘goods’ sector does not benefit container shipping,” noted Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence.

 

Change in spending share June 2024 vs 2019 baseline

 

“None of the categories that support container shipping have seen any significant level of growth in recent months, strongly suggesting that the growth in container volumes in May and June was largely driven by frontloading of peak season cargo,” Muprhy added.

 

 

Source: Phaata.com (via Sea-Intelligence)

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