Families snap to eat out for streaming and takeaway: Digital content payments see highest growth in five months
Squeezed-out consumers shunned dining out as they pushed up spending on takeout and streaming last month, figures show.
Payments for digital content, including TV hits like Succession and Ted Lasso, rose 4.1 percent — the highest growth in five months, according to Barclays.
Spending on restaurants fell 5.6 percent, while take-out meals rose 9.2 percent.
Nights in: Payments for digital content, including TV hits like Succession and Ted Lasso (pictured), rose 4.1% – the highest growth in five months
Households are also tightening their belts on essentials, the data suggests.
Grocery spending rose 7.1 percent, but that’s much lower than grocery inflation, which stands at 18.2 percent.
Esme Harwood, an executive at Barclays, said it showed consumers are “still doing their best to save money on their weekly shopping.”
Total spending on consumer cards rose by 4 percent, lagging overall inflation at 10.4 percent.
A poll commissioned by Barclays also found that more than half of consumers eat out less.
Separately, figures from the British Retail Consortium showed a growth of 5.1 percent in March compared to last year. That was aided by Mother’s Day sales at florists and card shops.