Please note that this press release was corrected 28 April 2016 at 15:55

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based on prices in April 2016 is 433.7 points (May 1988=100), 0.21% higher than in March 2016. The CPI less housing cost is 396.5 points, 0.10% higher than in March.

The cost of housing, water and electricity rose by 0.4 (effect on index 0.10%) and prices of fuels and lubricants increased by 2.9% (0.10%)

The CPI is 1.6% higher in April 2016 than in April 2015 while the CPI less housing cost is 0.2% higher than one year ago.

The CPI compiled in the middle of April 2016, 433.7 points, is applicable for indexation purposes in June 2016. The old credit terms index for June 2016 is 8,563 points.

The consumer price index is now published on a new base, March 2016. The rebasing of the index is primarily built on Statistics Iceland’s household expenditure survey 2011–2014. In addition, Statistics Iceland has used other sources where more recent and reliable information is available, such as data on new car registrations. Outlet weights for grocery stores have been updated leading to a 0.01 decrease of the index. The rebasing of the index does otherwise not have any effect on the CPI results in April. Expenditure shares according to the new and old base in March 2016 can be found here.

From April 2016 Statistics Iceland changes the method for collecting prices of groceries in the Consumer Price Index. The new method uses data from cash registers of grocery stores (scanner data) and replaces the manual method of collecting prices from store shelves. At this point the change is limited to the price collection whereas compilation and methods of price comparisons between months remain unchanged.

The change in price collection has various advantages. The scanner data makes it possible for Statistics Iceland to use average price in the price collection week for the compilation instead of average prices from the days the stores were visited. More price observations within the week, more stores, more products and better sources for sampling products increase the quality and stability of the index compilation. The number of prices from grocery stores that are used in the monthly compilation increases from 9-10 thousand a month to 120-130 thousand prices. The store sample coverage improves since the scanner data come from more stores than before. Moreover, the data enable easier revisions of the product sample when the index is rebased, since sales values are available.

The introduction of scanner data is the first step of Statistics Iceland’s implementation of cash register data from grocery stores in the Consumer Price Index. Further changes in methodology for groceries in the index can be expected in the coming years when utilisation of scanner data will increase. Changes in methodology will be announced in advance in accordance with the General Revision Policy for Statistics Iceland.

Statistics