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Holiday shopping turnout jumps to 202.9 million people during Thanksgiving weekend, NRF says
A person carries shopping bags during Black Friday shopping at Garden State Plaza on November 28, 2025 in Paramus, New Jersey.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | Getty Images
A desire for deep discounts inspired 202.9 million U.S. consumers to shop during the five-day stretch from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics released on Tuesday.
That estimated total surpassed the major trade group’s forecast that 186.9 million people would shop during the five-day period. It also increased from last year’s turnout of 197 million shoppers during the same period.
The shopping turnout is the largest since NRF began tracking the five-day total in 2017, and topped the previous high of 200.4 million shoppers during the same days in 2023. The trade group does not estimate the total amount spent during the extended Thanksgiving weekend.
On a call with reporters, NRF CEO Matt Shay described the shopping period as “the psychological kickoff of the holidays.” He said the number of shoppers represented “a very, very solid beginning” to the season.
“One of the key drivers here is that for many Americans and many families, holiday spending and holiday shopping is an essential part of the budget,” he said.
Even when consumers are pulling back and making trade-offs, they may still shop as December approaches. Shay said the holidays are “very much an emotional purchase.”
Retailers and economists are closely watching spending during the peak shopping season while trying to make sense of conflicting indicators about the country and U.S. households’ outlook. While consumer sentiment has tumbled and a growing number of major companies have laid off thousands of employees, retail sales data remains solid.
Even during a time of year that typically brings higher store traffic, retailers have looked for ways to manage one of their top costs: labor. Holiday hiring by retailers is expected to total between 265,000 and 365,000 roles this year, the lowest number of seasonal workers in at least 15 years, according to the NRF.
Despite that, the NRF anticipates U.S. consumers will still spend freely on gifts, decor and more. The trade group said in early November that it expects holiday spending to hit a record of between $1.1 trillion and $1.2 trillion from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, the first time the total would top $1 trillion.
That would represent a 3.7% to 4.2% increase from the year-ago holiday period. It would be a slight drop from last year’s 4.3% holiday sales growth rate. NRF’s forecast excludes auto dealers, gas stations and restaurants.
Shay said the Thanksgiving weekend spending gives the industry group confidence it’s on track to hit that projection. At the end of Cyber Monday, shoppers told NRF that they had about 53% of their holiday shopping remaining, which is similar to a year ago.
Packages on a conveyor belt at an Amazon fulfillment center on Cyber Monday in Robbinsville, New Jersey, US, on Monday, Dec. 1, 2025.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Consumers said in the survey that they were motivated to make purchases during the five days because of sales and promotions, such as free shipping and limited-time deals, said Phil Rist, executive vice president at Prosper Insights & Analytics, the research firm that conducts NRF’s annual survey. The poll included nearly 3,100 adults and was conducted from Nov. 26 to Nov. 30.
Mark Mathews, chief economist for the NRF, said “there’s a moat around this type of spending” for families across income levels. He said financially stretched households typically cut back in other areas like recreation and travel as they prioritize spending on the holidays.
He added that he expects shoppers to fill up bigger shopping baskets this season, including items that aren’t for the holidays, because shoppers “want to take advantage of these great deals that they’re seeing.”
Top gifts bought during the five-day span were clothing and accessories, with 51% of consumers surveyed saying they purchased items in the category, followed by toys with 32%, books and other media with 28%. and gift cards with 26%.
A total of 129.5 million consumers shopped in stores over the five days, a 3% year-over-year increase, the survey found, even as more Americans have done more of their Black Friday shopping online in recent years. The online shopping turnout jumped even more — by 9% year over year — as 134.9 million people shopped on retailers’ websites and apps.
Other research indicated a step-up in online spending, too. U.S. consumers spent a total of $14.25 billion online on Cyber Monday, a 7.1% year-over-year increase, according to Adobe Analytics. The company analyzes direct transactions online and covers over 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million individual items and 18 product categories.
During the five-day stretch from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, Adobe said consumers spent $44.2 billion online overall — a 7.7% year-over-year jump. A significant chunk of that came from online spending on Black Friday, which totaled $11.8 billion and grew by 9.1% year over year as shoppers sought out early deals.
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Budget 2026: FM Nirmala Sitharaman gives a strong push to manufacturing, infrastructure and job creation, while proposing a simpler tax and customs system.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the Union Budget 2026-27.
Budget 2026 Takeaways: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday presented the Union Budget 2026-27, giving a strong push to manufacturing, infrastructure and job creation, proposing a simpler tax and customs regime, and hailing the government’s modernisation drive as a “reforms express”.
The Budget 2026 is anchored around three ‘kartavyas’ — driving growth by enhancing productivity and competitiveness, building people’s capacity, and ensuring inclusive development under the vision of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas.
In her ninth consecutive Budget in Parliament, Sitharaman laid out a multi-pronged strategy to sustain growth amid global uncertainty, including expanding domestic electronics and semiconductor capabilities, de-risking infrastructure projects, skilling India’s youth for emerging technologies, and easing compliance for taxpayers and importers.
Here are the key takeaways from Budget 2026 across manufacturing, infrastructure, skills, AI, taxation and customs duty.
Manufacturing Gets A Boost
Budget 2026 put a special emphasis on the manufacturing landscape in India. The outlay for electronics components manufacturing was raised sharply to Rs 40,000 crore, while new schemes for rare earth magnets, chemical parks, container manufacturing and capital goods seek to reduce import dependency, and strengthen domestic supply chains. Textiles got an integrated, employment-oriented package covering fibres, clusters, skilling and sustainability.
Infrastructure-Led Growth
Infrastructure got a boost with a higher capex allocation and initiatives like a risk guarantee fund to de-risk projects for private developers, new dedicated freight corridors and national waterways, dedicated REITs (real estate investment trusts) for recycling of significant real estate assets of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), and a seaplane VGF (viability gap funding) scheme.
The Centre’s capital expenditure (capex) target has been increased to Rs 12.2 lakh crore for FY27, up from Rs 11.2 lakh crore earmarked for the current financial year. Moreover, maintaining the fiscal discipline, Sitharaman said the government expects the fiscal deficit to be at 4.3 per cent of the GDP in 2026-27, lower than 4.4 per cent projected for the current financial year.
Tier-II and Tier-III cities were placed at the centre of urban growth via City Economic Regions, backed by reform-linked funding.
“We shall continue to focus on developing infrastructure in cities with over 5 lakh population (Tier II and Tier III), which have expanded to become growth centres,” Sitharaman said in her Budget Speech.
Greater Emphasis On Skilling
The Budget placed renewed emphasis on the services economy as a jobs engine. A high-powered Education-to-Employment and Enterprise Committee will realign skilling with market needs, including the impact of emerging technologies.
Content creation and creative industries get a boost through AVGC labs in schools and colleges, support for animation, gaming and comics, and new institutional capacity for design and hospitality. Tourism-linked skilling, from guides to digital heritage documentation, signals a clear intent to convert culture and content into employment and exports.
“I propose to support the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies, Mumbai in setting up AVGC Content Creator Labs in 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges,” FM Sitharaman said. AVGC stands for animation, visual effects, gaming and comics.
AI & Semiconductors Push
Artificial intelligence (AI) was positioned as a cross-sector force multiplier rather than a standalone theme. The Budget provided a push to artificial intelligence (AI) by promoting adoption with governance, agriculture, education and skilling, including proposals for AI-enabled advisory tools for farmers and AI integration in education curricula.
On hardware, the semiconductor strategy expanded decisively under ISM 2.0 (India Semiconductor Mission 2.0), with focus on domestic equipment manufacturing, materials, research centres and workforce development, signalling a long-term commitment to building a resilient chip ecosystem in India.
Taxation, ITR, TDS, TCS
A major structural reform comes with the Income Tax Act, 2025, effective April 1, 2026, containing simpler rules and redesigned forms.
Budget 2026 provided compliance relief for individuals, including extended timelines for revising returns to March 31 from December 31 earlier, staggered ITR due dates, and easier filing of Form 15G/15H through depositories.
Individuals with ITR-1 and ITR-2 returns will continue to file till July 31, and non-audit business cases or trusts are proposed to be allowed time till August 31, according to the Budget Speech 2026-27.
“I propose to extend time available for revising returns from 31st December to up to 31st March with the payment of a nominal fee. I also propose to stagger the timeline for filing of tax returns. Individuals with ITR 1 and ITR 2 returns will continue to file till 31st July and non-audit business cases or trusts are proposed to be allowed time till 31st August,” Sitharaman said.
TDS (Tax deducted at source) rules were clarified for manpower services, while a rule-based system for lower or nil TDS certificates is proposed. TCS rates were cut to 2% for overseas tour packages, education and medical expenses under liberalised remittance scheme (LRS). Litigation is targeted through integrated assessment and penalty orders, lower pre-deposit requirements, and wider immunity provisions.
TDS on the sale of immovable property by a non-resident will be deducted and deposited through resident buyer’s PAN (Permanent Account Number)-based challan instead of requiring TAN (Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number), Sitharaman said.
Customs Duty Tweaks
Customs duty rationalisation continued with a clear focus on domestic manufacturing, energy transition and ease of living. Exemptions have been extended or introduced for capital goods used in lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals processing, nuclear power projects and aircraft manufacturing.
Personal imports will become cheaper with a reduction in duty on goods for personal use from 20% to 10%. Seventeen cancer drugs and additional rare-disease treatments were exempted from customs duty. Process reforms aimed at trust-based, tech-driven clearances, faster cargo movement and lower compliance costs, especially for exporters and MSMEs (micro, small, medium and enterprises).
STT On F&O Hiked
The Budget increased securities transaction tax (STT) on futures trading from 0.02% to 0.05% and on options trading from 0.10% to 0.15%, a move that upset the capital markets with the BSE Sensex crashing more than 2,300 points from the day’s high and the NSE Nifty dropping to 24,571.75.
Securities Transaction Tax (STT) is a direct tax imposed on the buying and selling of securities in India.
Commenting on the Budget, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The Union Budget reflects the aspirations of 140 crore Indians. It strengthens the reform journey and charts a clear roadmap for Viksit Bharat.”
February 01, 2026, 14:43 IST
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Shanghai (China): The Consulate General of India in Shanghai welcomed the resumption of Air India’s direct flight services between Shanghai and New Delhi, marking a major step forward in restoring people-to-people, business and institutional connectivity between India and China.
According to an official release, the inaugural Shanghai-New Delhi flight departed today from Shanghai Pudong International Airport, carrying over 230 passengers on board the Boeing 787 aircraft. The relaunch comes after a gap of nearly six years and represents a significant milestone in normalising bilateral air connectivity following the suspension of services in early 2020.
Speaking on the occasion, Consul General Pratik Mathur said, “The resumption of direct flights between Shanghai and New Delhi is a tangible expression of the renewed momentum in India-China engagement. Enhanced air connectivity is essential for facilitating trade, tourism, academic exchanges and people-to-people contacts, particularly between India and East China. We are pleased to see Air India restoring this important link.”
As per a release, Air India will operate the route four times a week using its Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, featuring modernised cabins and enhanced onboard services. The restored service reflects the growing demand for travel between the two countries and the steady recovery of cross-border mobility. It will also support commercial, educational and cultural exchanges between India and the Yangtze River Delta region, one of China’s most economically dynamic clusters.
The Consulate General of India in Shanghai remains committed to supporting initiatives that strengthen connectivity and deepen cooperation across trade, investment, tourism, education and cultural exchange, the release stated.
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