(Reuters) - Italian retail sales fell a seasonally adjusted 0.3 month-on-month in October, the second consecutive decline, but were up 1.8 percent from October 2014, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported on Wednesday.
Retail sales have staged a modest recovery this year as the economy has emerged slowly from a three year recession between 2012 and 2014, but most recent data suggests consumer demand remains listless.
Despite the monthly declines recorded in September and October, in unadjusted year-on-year terms the 1.8 percent increase in sales in October was the sixth in a row and the largest since April 2014.
The data are expressed in value terms and are not adjusted for consumer prices, which rose just 0.3 percent in October from the year earlier, based on Italy's EU-harmonised index (HICP).
In the three months to October retail sales were up an adjusted 0.2 percent from the May-July period, while in the first 10 months of 2015 sales were up an unadjusted 1.0 percent from the same period of last year.
(Gavin Jones, Rome newsroom)