Retail sales growth in December is expected to come in at 2%, below the 10-year average for the month of 3.2%.

The low rate of growth is likely to continue into early 2013, the Opera Solutions Retail predictor for Retail Week showed.

Last week official ONS data recorded year-on-year growth by value of 1.6% growth in October, close to the 1.4% forecast by Opera for the month.

Opera executive director and Europe lead Ray Eitel-Porter said that October’s return to low year-on-year growth indicated that a higher than expected rise in September likely reflected one-off factors such as the launch of iPhone 5.

He said: “These low figures are mainly driven by a rise in inflation, effectively weakening people’s actual income.”

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