Consumers Price Index: March 2024 Quarter

The consumers price index (CPI) measures the rate of price change of goods and services purchased by New Zealand households.

Key facts

Inflation rate for the March 2024 quarter:

• quarterly inflation rate was 0.6 percent
• annual inflation rate was 4.0 percent
• quarterly non-tradeable inflation rate was 1.6 percent
• annual non-tradeable inflation rate was 5.8 percent
• quarterly tradeable inflation rate was -0.7 percent
• annual tradeable inflation rate was 1.6 percent.

Quarterly change

In the March 2024 quarter, the CPI rose 0.6 percent (0.7 percent with seasonal adjustment).

• Alcoholic beverages and tobacco rose 3.4 percent, due to:
  • cigarettes and tobacco (up 6.5 percent)
  • alcoholic beverages (up 1.0 percent)
• Recreation and culture rose 2.4 percent, due to:
  • accommodation services (up 6.7 percent)
  • recreational and cultural services (up 2.0 percent).
• Housing and household utilities rose 0.7 percent, due to:
  • rent (up 1.2 percent)
  • construction (up 0.8 percent)
  • household energy (up 0.4 percent).

The 0.6 percent rise in the overall CPI was partly offset by:

• Transport fell 2.5 percent, due to:
  • passenger transport services (down 6.3 percent)
  • private transport supplies and services (down 1.4 percent)
  • purchase of vehicles (down 1.5 percent).

Annual changes

For the 12 months to the March 2024 quarter, the CPI inflation rate was 4.0 percent:

• Housing and household utilities increased 4.5 percent, due to:
  • rent (up 4.7 percent)
  • construction (up 3.3 percent)
  • property rates and related services (up 9.6 percent).
• Recreation and culture increased 5.6 percent, due to:
  • accommodation services (up 10.6 percent)
  • recreational and cultural services (up 7.4 percent)
  • other recreational equipment and supplies (up 3.6 percent).
• Alcoholic beverages and tobacco increased 7.4 percent, due to:
  • cigarettes and tobacco (up 10.4 percent)
  • alcoholic beverages (up 5.0 percent).

OECD Inflation has more data on international inflation rates.

Trimmed-mean measures

The trimmed-mean measures - which excludes extreme price movements - ranged from 4.4 to 4.6 percent in the 12 months to March 2024 quarter. This indicates that underlying inflation is higher than the 4.0 percent increase in the CPI.

In the March 2024 quarter, quarterly trimmed-means ranged between 0.7 and 0.8 percent.

For the 12 months to the March 2024 quarter:

• CPI excluding food increased 4.4 percent
• CPI excluding housing and household utilities increased 3.9 percent
• CPI excluding alcoholic beverages and tobacco increased 3.8 percent
• CPI excluding food group, household energy subgroup, and vehicle fuels increased 4.1 percent.

More data

Use Infoshare to access the CPI time series:

Subject category: Economic indicators
Group: Consumers price index

Definitions and metadata

Consumers price index concepts - DataInfo+ gives definitions of terms used in this release and general methodology used to produce the CPI and related metadata.

Consumers price index - DataInfo+ gives general methodology used to produce the CPI and related metadata.

Technical enquiries

Alex Heath
04 931 4600
[email protected]

ISSN 1178-0452

Next release

Consumers price index: June 2024 quarter will be released on 17 July 2024.