Business Indicators, Australia

Latest release

Quarterly estimates of private sector sales, wages, profits and inventories

Reference period
March 2025
Released
3/06/2025
  • Next Release 1/09/2025
    Business Indicators, Australia, June 2025
  • Next Release 1/12/2025
    Business Indicators, Australia, September 2025
  • Next Release 2/03/2026
    Business Indicators, Australia, December 2025
  • View all releases

Key statistics

Seasonally adjusted, current price estimates for:

  • Company gross operating profits fell 0.5%
  • Wages and salaries rose 1.4%

Seasonally adjusted, chain volume estimate for:

  • Inventories rose 0.8%
Key data items - Seasonally adjusted
 Dec 24 to Mar 25 (%)Mar 24 to Mar 25 (%)
Sales of goods and services (chain volume measures) 
 Manufacturing0.4-1.5
 Wholesale trade0.50.4
Inventories (chain volume measures)0.80.7
Company gross operating profits-0.5-5.0
Wages and salaries1.45.7
Key data items - Trend
 Dec 24 to Mar 25 (%)Mar 24 to Mar 25 (%)
Sales of goods and services (chain volume measures) 
 Manufacturing-0.8-2.8
 Wholesale trade0.80.4
Inventories (chain volume measures) 0.20.5
Company gross operating profits1.5-3.8
Wages and salaries1.45.3

Inventories

Company gross operating profits

Notes on release

Reinstatement of trend estimates

The trend estimates attempt to measure underlying behaviour in business activity. Due to the disruption to regular patterns in business activity during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ABS suspended Business Indicators trend estimates from June quarter 2019 onwards. 

In recent quarters, time series have reverted to more usual seasonal patterns, and it was assessed that the impacts of COVID-19 are no longer driving volatility in the data. The trend estimates were reinstated in the June quarter 2024 release. 

Due to the degree of disruption caused by COVID-19, the ABS will not publish trend estimates for all series from March quarter 2020 to September quarter 2022 (inclusive), as estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be misleading for users. 

Comparison between company gross operating profits and gross operating surplus

Valuation changes have had an impact on the value of inventories held by Australian businesses this quarter. An Inventories Valuation Adjustment (IVA) is applied in the calculation of the Gross Operating Surplus (GOS) of private non-financial corporations estimate in the Australian National Accounts. The IVA for the March quarter 2025 is $2,276m which is $573m higher than the December quarter 2024 IVA of $1,703m.

No adjustment is made to the Company Gross Operating Profits (CGOP) estimate in this publication and, as a result, users should exercise caution when comparing CGOP and GOS. It should be noted that there are other differences between the two series. In particular, changes are made to GOS when annual benchmarks are applied, and slightly different seasonal factors apply to the two series. Given this, while CGOP movements are an appropriate indicator for GOS, the two series will not have equivalent seasonally adjusted movements from quarter to quarter.

Analysis by industry

​​​​​​​Featured series

The following graphs and commentary refer to seasonally adjusted estimates for sales of goods and services and inventories in volume terms, and wages and salaries and company gross operating profits in current price terms. 

Total all industries

Mining

Manufacturing

Electricity, gas, water and waste services

Construction

Wholesale trade

Retail trade

Accommodation and food services

Transport, postal and warehousing

Information media and telecommunications

Financial and insurance services

Rental, hiring and real estate services

Professional, scientific and technical services

Administrative and support services

Education and training

Health care and social assistance

Arts and recreation services

Other services

Data downloads

The Survey of Consumer Sales timeseries spreadsheets will be published in the Business Indicators release from March quarter 2025 onwards, as Tables 24 and 25. This is in line with the future cessation of the Retail Trade publication on 31 July 2025.

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data Explorer datasets

Caution: Data in Data Explorer is currently released after the 11:30am release on the ABS website. Please check the reference period when using Data Explorer.

Business Indicators  - Quarterly estimates of private sector sales, wages, profits and inventories

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 5676.0.

Methodology

Scope

The Business Indicators publication contains estimates of:

  • Income from sales of goods and services
  • Wages and salaries
  • Company profits
  • The book value of inventories for selected industries in Australia.

 

Geography

The data available includes estimates for:

  • Australia
  • State/Territory sales and wages. 

Source

The Quarterly Business Indicators Survey takes its frame from employing and non-employing units on the ABS Business Register (ABSBR) which is based on Australian Business Number (ABN) registrations to the Australian Business Register (ABR).

Collection method

The Business Indicators' series have been compiled from data collected by the ABS in its Quarterly Business Indicators Survey. The survey is conducted by web form on a quarterly basis and collects data from private sector businesses. 

Concepts, sources and methods

Not available

History of changes

  • Telstra's privatisation, effective from March quarter 2007
  • Sample redesign March quarter 2024
  • Experimental series of Consumer Sales included from March quarter 2025. 
View full methodology
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