In January, the volume of services rendered in the country grew 0.7% compared to December. It is the third consecutive positive result for the indicator, accumulating a gain of 1.9%. Four of the five activities surveyed were had positive rates: information and communication (1.5%), the sector with the greatest impact on the general result; professional, administrative and complementary services (1.1%) and transportation (0.7%). Other services (0.2%) showed a slight positive change and services provided to families (-2.7%) recorded a drop.

The reaminder is temporarily in Portuguese.

Thus, the services sector is 13.5% above the level of February 2020 (pre-pandemic) and 0.7% below December 2022 (the highest point in the historical series). The data comes from the Monthly Services Survey (PMS), released today (15) by IBGE.

This is the fourth positive result in a row for the information and communication sector (1.5%), which accumulated a gain of 3.8% in the period. “The main positive impact came from audiovisual services (27.6%), driven by the growth in revenue from companies that work with cinematographic exhibitions, content programmers for closed TV and streaming platforms. “With the holiday period, movie theaters ended up receiving more audiences and increasing the revenue of companies in this segment. Still within the information and communication sector, I highlight the increase in revenue from companies that work with publishing integrated with book printing, due to the production of teaching material aimed at schools. And, finally, information technology services (3.8%) also contributed to the sector's good performance this month, explained Rodrigo Lobo, manager of PMS.

Compared to the same month in the previous year, the volume of services expanded by 4.5% in January 2024, after falling by 1.9% in December. The configuration of this month's index was more spread out both sectorally and regionally, as all 5 activities and 26 of the 27 federation units advanced compared to the same month of the previous year. The January 2024 diffusion index, which measures the percentage of services expanding, signaled a greater number of activities with positive rates, with growth in 92 of the 166 types of service surveyed (55.4%).
 

The volume of services, growing 4.5% in January 2024, interrupts a long sequence of loss of dynamism that had already been taking place from the second quarter of 2021 (21.5%) to the last quarter of 2023 (-0. 6%), all comparisons against similar periods in the previous year. In sectoral terms, four of the 5 activities investigated also showed a gain in momentum from the period October-December last year (-0.6%) to January 2024 (4.5%), with emphasis on the reversals in behavior observed in the other services sectors (from -4.4% to 3.1%) and transport (from -3.6% to 3.1%).

In addition, information and communication services (from 1.5% to 6.8%); and professionals, administrative and complementary (from 2.7% to 5.0%) increased the magnitude of expansion in the intervals analyzed. On the other hand, services provided to families (from 4.8% to 3.9%) were the only ones that reduced the magnitude of growth between the two time periods investigated.

Tourism activities fell 0.8% in January

In January 2024, the tourism activity index fell 0.8% compared to the previous month, after showing an expansion of 2.6% in December. As a result, the tourism segment is 3.5% above the level of February 2020 and 4.3% below the highest point in the series, reached in February 2014.

Only four of the 12 locations surveyed followed this downward movement seen in national tourist activity (-0.8%). The most relevant negative influences came from Rio de Janeiro (-5.7%) and Rio Grande do Sul (-6.2%). In contrast, Ceará (11.9%), Bahia (2.7%), São Paulo (0.3%) and Minas Gerais (1.1%) recorded the main advances in regional terms.

In comparison with January 2023, the volume index of tourist activities in Brazil expanded by 0.5%, the 34th positive rate in a row, being driven mainly by the increase in revenue from companies operating in the sectors of restaurant; catering services; car rental; theatrical and musical shows; and travel agencies.

In regional terms, six of the 12 Federation Units where the indicator is investigated showed progress in services aimed at tourism, mainly Minas Gerais (10.1%) and Rio de Janeiro (4.3%), followed by Pernambuco (5.2%), Paraná (2.8%) and Santa Catarina (3.0%). On the other hand, the Federal District (-8.7%), Rio Grande do Sul (-5.7%), Goiás (-8.2%), Ceará (-5.4%) and Espírito Santo (-8.2%) %) exerted the main negative impacts of the month

Passenger transportation grows, after four consecutive falls

In January 2024, the volume of passenger transportation in Brazil registered an expansion of 2.9% compared to the previous month, in the seasonally adjusted series, after recording four negative rates in a row, a period in which it recorded a cumulative loss of 8.0%. Therefore, in this reference month, the segment is 5.6% below the level of February 2020 (pre-pandemic) and 27.2% below February 2014 (the highest point in the time series).

In turn, the volume of cargo transportation expanded by 0.6% in January 2024, after falling by 0.9% in December. Therefore, the segment is 4.4% below the highest point in its series (July 2023). In relation to the pre-pandemic level, cargo transportation is 37.0% above February 2020.

“We have a negative influence from air transportation, because the level of airfare prices was lower in January 2023 than in January 2024. Also within this segment, it is important to highlight that collective road passenger transportation fell, due to a stronger demand in January 2023 compared to January 2024”, explained Rodrigo Lobo, manager of PMS.

More about the survey

The PMS produces indicators that allow monitoring the current behavior of the services sector in the country, investigating the gross revenue from services in formally constituted companies, with 20 or more employed persons, whose main activity is a non-financial service, excluding the areas of health and education. There are results for Brazil and all Federation Units. The results can be consulted on Sidra.

This is the thirteenth publication of the new series of the survey, which underwent updates in the selection of the sample of companies, in addition to methodological changes, with the aim of portraying economic changes in society. These are updates already planned and implemented periodically by IBGE. The next release of the Monthly Survey of Services, for the month of February, will be on April 12th.