The US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) consumer spending data has indicated that there has been no sudden increase in consumer spending.
According to Sea-Intelligence, this support to the notion that the early peak season for container goods is driven by front-loading of imports rather than a surge in consumer spending.
Data is divided at the highest level as ‘goods’ or ‘services’. Goods are further seperated as ‘durable goods’ and ‘non-durable goods’.
The figure below depicts the year-on-year (YoY) increase of both ‘durable goods’ and ‘non-durable products’ during the previous three years.
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The YoY growth rate in expenditure on ‘durable goods’ fell sharply in early 2024, and while it has since recovered, it is still not at the same level as in 2023.
The growth rate for ‘non-durable products’ has been steadily growing from the end of 2022.
Sea-Intelligence noted that there has been no unexpected increase in consumer spending in late spring/early summer 2024.
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Furthermore, the only sub-section of ‘goods’ that has had a large rise in proportion of consumer expenditure is ‘recreational goods and vehicles’, which increased from an average of 10.2 per cent in 2019 to 15.1 per cent in June 2024.
Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, said: “Looking at the components in this sub-section, we see that ‘information processing equipment’, namely ‘computer software and accessories’, is the primary driver of this rise. Since these components do not move in containers, this boost to consumer spending in the ‘goods’ sector does not benefit container shipping.
“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.”
