Compared with the same month a year ago, the services sector dropped 5.9% in terms of volume of services in March, having already changed -3.9% in February and -5.0% in January. The following segments registered negative changes: Services rendered to families
(-3.8%); Information and communication services (-5.9%); Professional, administrative and complementary services (-6.8%) and Transportation, support activities for transportation and mailing (-7.2%). The segment of Other services grew 2.6%. The cumulative rate in the year stood at -5.0% and, in 12 months, at -4.4%. The special aggregate of Tourism activities retracted 2.3%, after rising 1.3% in February and 0.5% in January. In this same comparison, nominal revenue fell 0.4% in March over March 2015, after increasing 2.0% in February and dropping 0.1% in January. The cumulative rate of nominal revenue in the year stayed at 0.5%, and, in 12 months, at 0.7%. Click here to see the complete publication.

Table 1
Indicators of Volume of Services, according to Groups of Activities
Brazil - March 2016

Source: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, Coordenação de Serviços e Comércio.

Table 1A
Indicators of Nominal Revenue of the Services Sector, according to Groups of Activities
Brazil - March 2016

Source: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, Coordenação de Serviços e Comércio.

The contribution of the segments to the overall rate of volume were as follows, in order of contribution: Information and communication services and Transportation, support activities for transportation and mailing, both with -2.3 p.p., Professional, administrative and complementary services (-1.2 p.p.) and Services rendered to families (-0.2 p.p.). The segment of Other services positively contributed with 0.1 p.p.

Table 2
Composition of the Monthly Rate of Services,
according to Groups of Activities, Brazil - March 2016

Source: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, Coordenação de Serviços e Comércio.
(1) Base 2011=100

The segment of Services rendered to families changed -3.8% in terms of volume of services in March over the same month in the previous year, against -1.4% in February and -4.1% in January, maintaining the constant series of negative volume changes since May 2014. The cumulative change in the year stood at -3.2% and, in 12 months, at
-5.3%. Housing and food services dropped 4.6% and Other services rendered to families increased 0.9%.

Having already recorded negative changes in February (5.1%) and in January (2.1%), Information and communication services registered a negative change of 5.9% in terms of volume of services in March over the same month a year ago. The cumulative rate in the year stood at -4.4% and, in 12 months, at -1.8%.

Information and communication technology services – ICT changed -5.3% in terms of volume of services, highlighted by Telecommunications (-5.2%) and Information technology services (-5.9%). Audiovisual, publishing and news agency services dropped 9.6% in terms of volume of services against the same month in the previous year.

Having dropped 4.3% in February and 9.1% in January, the segment of Professional, administrative and complementary services fell 6.8% in March, in terms of volume of services, compared with the same month a year ago. The cumulative volume change in the year stood at -6.7% and, in 12 months, at -5.5%.

Technical-professional services, which correspond to knowledge-intensive services, dropped 8.5% in terms of volume of services and Administrative and complementary services, which encompass labor-intensive activities, declined 6.2%.

The segment of Transportation, support activities for transportation and mailing registered a negative change of volume of 7.2% in March over the same month a year ago. In February and January, this segment recorded negative changes of 2.1% and 5.8%, respectively. The cumulative volume change in the year stood at -5.2% and, in 12 months, at
-6.1%. In terms of mode, the figures for volume were: Land transportation (-10.1%), Waterway transportation (-2.4%), and Air transportation (1.4%). The activity of Storage services, support activities for transportation and mailing activities registered a decrease of 5.3%.

The segment of Other services rose 2.6% in terms of volume of services rendered, against reductions of 6.1% in February and of 7.9% in January. The cumulative change in the year stood at -3.7% and, in 12 months, at -8.4%.

Tourism activities retracted 2.3% in March over March 2015, after recording increases of 1.3% in February and of 0.5% in January. The cumulative change in the year stood at -0,2% and, in 12 months, at -1.4%.

Services drop 5.0% in first quarter

The results of the first quarter of 2016 maintained the series of negative changes of the last quarters, hitting -5.0%. The most relevant drops were reported in Professional, administrative and complementary services (-6.7%); Transportation, support activities for transportation and mailing (-5.2%) and Information and communication services (-4.4%), i.e., those segments with the highest weights in the services sector. Weighting less in this sector, Other services fell 3.7% and Services rendered to families, 3.2%. Tourism activities posted a cumulative drop of 0.2% in the first quarter.

Table 3
Quarterly Indicators of Volume of the Services Sector,
according to Groups of Activities, Brazil - 2015-2016

Source: IBGE, Diretoria de Pesquisas, Coordenação de Serviços e Comércio.

Regional results: Amazonas, Amapá and Maranhão register biggest drops

Concerning the regional results of the services sector in March against the same month a year ago, the positive changes were as follows: Tocantins (9.3%), Roraima (7.3%), Rondônia (6.9%), the Federal District (4.1%), Ceará (1.4%) and Alagoas (0.2%). The biggest negative changes in terms of volume were reported in Amazonas (-16.3%), Amapá (-15.3%) and Maranhão (-11.7%).

In the regional analysis of Tourism activities according to the selected Federation Units, the positive changes in volume were reported in Pernambuco (1.6%) and Ceará (0.7%). The negative changes in volume were recorded in Santa Catarina (-11.8%), Paraná (-10.4%), Bahia (-6.1%), Goiás (-4.4%), the Federal District (-3.4%), Rio de Janeiro (-1.5%), Espírito Santo (-1.3%), Minas Gerais (-0.8%), São Paulo (-0.7%) and Rio Grande do Sul (-0.3%).