The following is the unedited transcript of the news release from the U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce.


The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $369.9 billion, an increase of 0.9% from the previous month and up 5.4% from December 2005.


Total sales for the 12 months of 2006 were up 6.0% from 2005. Total sales for the October through December 2006 period were up 4.9 percent (±0.5%) from the same period a year ago. The October to November 2006 percent change was revised from +1.0% to +0.6%.


Retail trade sales were up 0.7% from November and were 4.9% above last year. Electronics and appliance stores were up 15.0% from December 2005 and sales of health and personal care stores were up 10.2% from last year.


Available at:

http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/marts_current.html