Last year saw Christmas sales being affected throughout the world because of the US and European recession. People regarded it as one of the weakest Christmas since a long time. This year the story seems different.

November itself has showed much improved figures and in fact has the highest and fastest annual growth of any month.

Established in 1989 the electronic payments provider which processes 75% of the payment in India, Paymark, has revealed the data. Volume has increased by 5.6% and the value has increased by 5.5% which is $3.78 billion of the transactions of November.

The retail sales figures were or on a high in October up by 3.3% y-o-y on value. The figures are strong indication that the Christmas would be a strong one as compared to the last 2 year's Christmas.

Waikato, Palmerston North and South Canterbury saw annual increases in value of 9.1%, 7.6% and 8.0% respectively and were among the best performing centers.