Cyprus Retail Sector Sees Strong 2025 Growth: Value Up 6.1%, Volume Up 7.9%

by THEFUTURE.TEAM

February 4, 2026

Strong Overall Performance

The retail sector reported a significant uplift in 2025, with total turnover growing by 6.1% in value and 7.9% in volume compared to 2024, according to data released by the national Statistics Agency. This surge underlines a sustained boost in consumer activity and an expanding market environment, affirming the resilience of the retail landscape.

Sector-Specific Highlights

Analyzing the data by category provides further insights into the drivers behind the growth. The specialized food, beverages and tobacco retail outlets led the value increase with a notable 14.5% rise. Concurrently, the apparel and footwear segment demonstrated exceptional performance in volume, also recording a 14.5% increase. These results reflect both heightened consumer spending and a pronounced shift in purchasing patterns during the period.

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Momentum At Year End

The upward trend continued in the final month of the year. In December, the Value Turnover Index rose 5.8% year on year. The Volume Turnover Index for retail trade increased by 8.9% compared with December 2024, according to industry reports. The figures indicate that retail activity remained strong at the end of the year.

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Google Cloud Outage Disrupts Banking And Digital Services Across The UK

by THEFUTURE.TEAM

October 20, 2026

A power outage at a Google Cloud data centre near London disrupted services across the UK on Tuesday, affecting banks, businesses and other digital platforms. Google said the incident was caused by a power event at its cloud operations, with full recovery expected by around 1300 GMT.

The disruption began at 0608 GMT and affected Google Cloud services in the europe-west2 region, which is hosted in London. In an initial update, the company reported elevated error rates and intermittent network failures across multiple services as engineers worked to restore operations.

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Banking Services Hit By The Disruption

Revolut was among the most visibly affected companies, with customers reporting problems with ATM withdrawals, bank transfers and card top-ups. A source close to the matter linked the issues to the Google Cloud outage.

Traditional banks also reported disruptions. Lloyds said some customers were experiencing problems with its app and online banking, while HSBC confirmed difficulties accessing its services. HSBC added that it was monitoring the situation and noted that other organisations were affected as well.

Disruption Spreads Beyond Finance

Downdetector, which tracks online service disruptions, recorded hundreds of reports involving other businesses, including property website Rightmove and the Royal Mail postal service. The reports suggested that the outage was affecting multiple parts of the UK’s digital economy.

The incident highlights the risks facing businesses that depend on shared cloud infrastructure. Even a temporary failure at a single provider can disrupt services across several sectors, from banking and payments to logistics and consumer platforms.

Companies Reassure Customers

Revolut said it had been working to resolve the issue since it was identified and apologised to affected customers. The company also confirmed that customers’ money and data remained safe.

As cloud platforms underpin an increasing share of digital commerce, the outage illustrates how disruptions to critical infrastructure can spread far beyond the provider itself, affecting businesses and customers across the economy.

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