Italian inflation breadth saw a minor improvement in March, even as fading energy base effects and sticky services inflation pushed headline HICP to 1.2% (vs 0.8% prior).

• The share of subcomponents with annual inflation rates above 2% fell to 54% (vs 56% prior).
• ISTAT does not produce index values for the most granular HICP categories, meaning the breadth calculation is based on just 89 components.
• In March, 9 subcomponents had annual rates above 6% Y/Y (vs 7 in Feb), 4 subcomponents had rates between 4-6% Y/Y (vs 9 in Feb) while 35 were between 2-4% Y/Y (vs 34 in Feb).
• The final March data saw annual HICP revised down from an initial 1.3% Y/Y. This was primarily due to processed foods inflation being revised down 2.8% Y/Y (vs 3.3% flash) and unprocessed food to 2.8% Y/Y (vs 3.0% flash).