Investing.com — The French services sector experienced further contraction in January due to weak demand and political uncertainty, as indicated by a business survey by S&P Global published on Friday.
The HCOB Flash Services PMI Business Activity Index, a key indicator of business operations, fell to 48.9 from 49.3 in December.
This figure not only fell short of analyst expectations, which predicted a reading of 49.3, but also dropped below the 50.0 threshold, signaling a contraction in growth.
Despite the contraction in the services sector, the broader French private sector showed a slight improvement. The Composite PMI Output Index, which measures the combined output of both the manufacturing and service sectors, increased to 48.3 from 47.5.
This exceeded the forecasted figure of 47.7. Meanwhile, the manufacturing activity index, which gauges the performance of the manufacturing sector, rose to 45.3 from 41.9, outperforming the predicted 42.3.
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