Consumption shrank by 0.7%.
The German statistical office, Destatis, also said that private consumption shrank 0.5percentt in the second quarter, the third consecutive contraction.
Before it offered to buy SABMiller in September, analysts said it needed a big deal to keep profits growing as beer consumption shrinks in the US, where the rise of craft ales has hit sales of mass-produced beer.
Now, it could be that these assumptions are all wrong — that the supply of oil will not be constricted going forward, that concerns about the Middle East are exaggerated, and that higher prices will lead people to cut back on energy consumption, shrinking demand.
Travis Engen, Alcan's chief executive, told analysts yesterday that the company expected North American consumption to shrink 5percentthis yearar, with Europe showing a 1.1percentt increase and Latin America up 3.8percentt.
Within China, advocates of economic reform have a big argument for accelerating the policy shift that de-emphasizes exports and promotes domestic private consumption to shrink China's trade surplus.
The geographic line-in-the-sand between areas of food production and food consumption will shrink, and the focus will switch from animals to plants as technological advances give us the ability to create healthy, nutritious and flavorful meat alternatives.
Cigarette consumption is shrinking in the company's home market.
Economists at HVB, a big German bank, reckon that private consumption probably shrank for the third quarter running, for the first time on record.Elsewhere, the pattern is reversed, with consumer spending contributing far more and exports far less.
Even if America's consumption keeps shrinking, it will remain the world's biggest oil buyer for decades: foreign supplies will grow more, not less, important in its market.
So I expect this will expand consumption, rather than shrink it".
