Tablet PCs added to inflation basket

TABLET computers such as Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab have been added to the basket of goods and services used to calculate inflation rates – while photo processing has been thrown out.

Tablets have been added to reflect a “significant and growing” market, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, while developing and printing colour film was ditched due to the rising popularity of digital cameras.

The latest snapshot of the nation’s spending habits also showed the addition of bundled communication services to reflect the way consumers pay for their phone, TV and internet packages.

The consumer prices index (CPI) and retail prices index (RPI) rates of inflation are calculated using 180,000 price quotations every month, covering 700 goods and services from 150 areas across the UK.

Teenage fiction, such as the vampire romance Twilight, was also added to the basket to reflect the genre’s growing presence, as it was previously divided between adult and children’s fiction.

Cans of stout, such as Guinness, have also been added to widen the coverage of beers in the basket, along with pineapples, hot oat cereals and takeaway chicken and chips. Boiled sweets were bumped out by a more broadly-defined “bag of sweets not chocolate” to reflect the rising popularity of chewy sweets in recent years.

Other casualties included glass ovenware casserole dishes, step ladders and annual leisure centre membership.