GOOGLE DATA: Indonesia, South Korea mobility plummets in July vs June

Quantum Commodity Intelligence - Indonesia, South Korea and South Africa were notable exceptions to broadly positive Google personal mobility data for the week ending July 16, despite growing fears of a global Covid resurgence.

Indonesia saw mobility drop by 4.5 percentage points on the week to -17.4% versus the January 2020 pre-Covid baseline, a figure which has dropped rapidly from a June month average of just -1.6%.

Daily Covid cases in the country have risen sharply through the first half of July, peaking at nearly 60,000 cases according to John Hopkins University data, by far the worst it has been struck by the pandemic so far.

In South Korea, data remained positive versus January 2020 at +20.2% for the most recent week, but this represented a 5.8 pp drop on the week and compares to an average of +40.4% in June.

Cases there have risen to around 1,600 per day in the first half of July and authorities have now imposed a semi-lockdown on the capital Seoul as well as limits to gatherings throughout the country.

Mobility data for South Africa over the week to July 16 slumped 9.5 pp to -19.9% as the country was struck by both a third wave of Covid, which saw daily cases hit a record of over 26,000, but also rioting and looting following the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma.

Elsewhere, data throughout Europe, the Americas and the remainder of Asia mostly showed signs of improvement as governments continue to relax restrictions and economies reopen.

Japan and India both made small gains at 1 and 4.1 percentage points on the week to -7.2% and -11.3% respectively.

Mexico and Brazil rose 0.5 pp and 0.7 pp to -2.8% and +2.8%, while the US slipped 1.2 pp to +6.2%.

Germany, France, Italy and the UK all also saw increases of between 2.7 pp and 7.1 pp and mobility was positive versus January 2020.

Google's mobility data measures journeys made for commuting, grocery and leisure purposes and sometimes indicates a different direction for fuel consumption compared to traffic data, which is typically related to motorway and other major road usage.