Annual own price growth among firms in the DMP has continued to decline over the past year. In the three months to February, annual output price growth was 3.7%, down from 3.9% in the three months to November (Chart 1). This refers to prices charged by businesses across the whole economy, rather than just those selling directly to consumers. Looking at year-ahead values, firms are now expecting an increase in own price inflation of 0.3 percentage points to 4.0%. This is the first time firms have expected an increase in output price growth since June 2021.
Realised and expected own price growth has developed differently for goods producers and service providers. Services price inflation had a lower and later peak and has seen a slower decline than goods price inflation. In the three months to February, own price growth in the service sector was 4.2%, down from 4.7% in the three months to November. For own price expectations over the year ahead, service providers now expect own price growth to remain at 4.2%. Own price growth in the goods sector rose to 3.0% in the three months to February increasing by 0.2 percentage points since the three months to November. Over the year ahead, goods producers expect a further increase in own price growth of 0.6 percentage points to 3.6%.