Services producer price indices

Services Producer Price Indices (SPPIs) or Output Price Indices for Services measure quarterly changes in the prices received for services provided by enterprises to other enterprises and Government. This means the SPPIs cover what are commonly known as business to business transactions, thus leaving out sales to consumers.

The indices are chained based, namely the basket of services and the weighting system are updated annually. Quarterly indices for the current year are calculated with reference to the last quarter of the previous year (calculation base) and subsequently chained over the period chosen as a reference base in order to be able to measure price trends over a period of time of more than a year. The indices are calculated according to Ateco 2007 classification (Italian edition of Nace Rev. 2).

With the release of Services Producer Price Indices for Quarter I 2013 both the producer price index in the sector of Postal and courier activities and the index of Telecommunications will be published with 2010=100 as the reference base. Up to this moment the reference base for these indices has been 2006=100. The producer price index in the sector of Sea and coastal water transport and the one in the sector of Air transport are already expressed with 2010=100 as the reference base.

In quarter I 2013 the producer price index in the sector of Postal and courier activities, with reference base year 2010=100, increased by 1.7% compared with the previous quarter and by 0.2% compared with the same quarter of 2012.

In the same period the index of Telecommunications, with reference base year 2010=100, fell by 3.0% compared with the previous quarter (-0.3% for Wired telecommunications activities and -8.6% for Wireless telecommunications  activities) and  decreased by  9.0%  compared  with  the same quarter of the previous year  (-5.0% for Wired telecommunications activities and -17.3% for the Wireless ones).

In quarter I 2013 the producer price index in the sector of Sea and coastal water transport, with reference base year 2010=100, increased by 10.5% compared with the previous quarter and by 6.2% compared with the same quarter of 2012.

In the same period the index of Air transport, with reference base year 2010=100, increased by 0.2% compared with the previous quarter (+1.4% for Freight air transport  and -0.8% for Passenger air transport) and increased by 1.2% compared with the same quarter of the previous year (+4.8% for Freight air transport and -2.1% for Passenger air transport).