We have updated our forecasts for online retail sales growth and penetration in Australia. FY25 was defined by strong online sales growth in marketplaces, food delivery and electronics. We have revised our long-term forecasts with higher penetration in online food as the supermarkets embrace food delivery aggregators and click & collect. We have slightly lowered our non-food forecasts. The emphasis remains on the profitability of online retailing for bricks & mortar retailers as well as the threat of Amazon to Australian retailers as they expand their footprint.

Australian retail sales rose 6.2% in October 2025 year-on-year, a surprise given our feedback of modest spending in October in what felt like anticipation of Black Friday deals. The theme of a strong consumer continued from the National Accounts update for the September quarter in which household income was revised higher. Higher house prices and improved savings rates are buffering the consumer with sentiment trending higher.

The Australian legal tobacco market has shrunk by close to 70% over six years yet nicotine consumption is up over the same timeframe given illicit tobacco and vapes. While the declines are not over, we can see a path to stabilisation in legal tobacco in the second-half of 2026 as legislation on outlets and stronger border force efforts reduce illicit tobacco and vape supply. For Coles, Woolworths and Metcash, stabilisation in tobacco will add 1% to 2% to food sales growth, while the group EBIT drag of 1%-2% per annum will also fade away from FY27e onwards. For Ampol and Viva, the sales impact is likely to be more meaningful boosting convenience shop sales by as much as 7%. Viva has the largest tobacco exposure at 5% of group EBIT.

We have published our periodical chart pack of retailer performance vs market. See attached PDF.  This market share report provides two insights – 1) which retailers are winning and to what extent. 2) Insights about market structure.  If you would like any of the data in Excel at any point, just contact us.

Australian retail sales rose 4.7% in September 2025 year-on-year, an improvement on August 2025 trends. Growth was stronger across all retail categories. While the RBA has paused on further rate cuts, house price growth looks to be accelerating, which is supportive of better retail sales growth. It should be a decent Christmas for most retailers, just watch for the levels of discounting.

We have made modest revisions to our retail sales forecasts. For FY26e, we forecast retail sales growth of 4.0% (prev 3.9%) and for FY27e 4.1% growth (unchanged). Non-food retail spending has been solid in the past six months and the trends are likely to continue into Christmas this year. However, we may see some shift in category performance in the new year as household goods slow, while fashion and takeaway food sales improve. Our upswing in retail sales is muted, which is a function of slowing household income growth and a low savings rates. We continue to monitor house prices closely as a source of upside risk if the wealth effect stimulates the use of previously stored-up savings.

Australian retail sales only rose 3.1% in August 2025, a slowdown from the 5% trendline seen in the previous three months. The slowdown was broad-based, albeit café & restaurant spending remained strong at 6.4% growth. While the slowdown may raise some concern, we see the sustainable trend level around 4% growth and hence a softer month for August and September is likely. Consumers are bound to wait till Black Friday to spend up again.

Noumi reported total sales of $595 million, up 1.0% (vs MSTe +0.6%). While the Plant-based Milk division sales grew 2.5%, the Dairy and Nutritionals division sales were flat. The Plant-based Milk division sales were led by the performance of the Milklab branded product which grew 6.7% in the year, with strong sales growth in the retail channel.

New Zealand has been a challenging retail market for most companies over the past 18 months. However, there are clear signs retail sales are likely to improve. Rate cuts of 250bp that began in August 2024 are starting to boost incomes and recent sales trends have been stronger. We expect NZ retail spending to rebound to 3.6% growth in FY26e, up from 0.6% growth in FY25. The three retailers with the largest sales exposure and upside to better NZ sales trends are Ampol, Harvey Norman and Bapcor.  NZ could account for 2%-3.5% in operating profit growth for these companies.

The link provides a presentation associated with a webinar we held. The webinar addressed our retail sales forecasts for FY26e. The outlook remains constructive for retail spending in FY26e, interest rates are falling and tax cuts are providing stimulus for households, but population growth is slowing and income growth may not rise further from here. We assessed the willingness of consumers to dip into savings to drive retail spending higher.