Retail spending using electronic cards was up a seasonally adjusted 0.7 per cent in December, Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) says.
Vehicle fuel was the main factor in the rise, as it had been in rises in the series since last July.
Core retail sales, which exclude the vehicle-related industries, rose 0.4 per cent from November, driven by consumables such as food, liquor and chemist retailing, SNZ said.
The actual value of transactions in core retail was $4.2 billion, up 3.6 per cent from December 2008.
When non-retail industries were included, the total value of electronic card transactions was up by just a seasonally adjusted 0.3 per cent.
The non-retail industries, which include services such as travel and health, and wholesaling, were down 1.4 per cent last month, SNZ said.
Trends for the value of transactions in the total, retail, and core retail series had all been increasing since January 2009.
Latest figures indicated that the growth rate for the retail series has picked up since last August. For the core retail series, the trend had been comparatively flat in recent months, up 1 per cent since June.
Credit card use accounted for 44.6 per cent of total transactions in the December quarter, an increase on the two previous quarters. That followed a general decline since the March 2008 quarter when the proportion was 47.7 per cent.
- NZPA
