SpendingPulse 2009 Holiday Wrap-Up Report:

A Stronger December Caps a Stabilizing Retail Environment as

Sectors Show Positive Year-over-Year Growth since Black Friday

This Year, Driven by Strategy, Not Panic, Retailers Hold the Line on Discounting

SpendingPulse™
Data Source: A macro-economic indicator, SpendingPulse reports on national retail and service
sales and is based on aggregate sales activity in the MasterCard payments
network, coupled with survey-based estimates for certain other payment forms,
such as cash and check. MasterCard SpendingPulse does not represent
MasterCard financial performance. SpendingPulse is provided by MasterCard
Advisors, the professional services arm of MasterCard Worldwide.

Purchase, N.Y. December 28, 2009 – MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse, a macro-economic

report tracking national retail and service sales, today provided summary results for the holiday
shopping season. The data showed year-over-year growth in the period between Black Friday
through December 24 in all sectors measured. In addition, six out of ten sectors showed positive
growth in the period from November 1 through December 24. Tempering these results, however,
is the fact that there was an extra day this year over last year’s holiday season. Adjusting for this
could decrease the season’s year over-year-growth statistics by anywhere from 2% to 4%.

“Overall this year, we have seen increasing stability in spending, as opposed to the free-fall of
2008,” noted Michael McNamara, Vice President, Research and Analysis for SpendingPulse.
“This is especially significant considering that prices have been holding up this season, without the
broad emergency discounting that consumers benefited from during the 2008 holiday season.”

McNamara pointed to several anomalies in the season this year. “The extra shopping day may
have given some lift to overall year-over-year comparisons. Also, early discounting in 2008 drew
holiday spending into early November, while this year shopping didn’t really take off until Black
Friday. That shift in sales patterns is one of the factors that made November of this year look
weak, and December look stronger. That’s why it’s important to look at numbers for November
and December combined. Finally, several major winter storms disrupted traffic to brick and
mortar locations that seemed to benefit online shopping growth rates.”

SpendingPulse analyzed the Electronics, Specialty (Apparel), eCommerce and Luxury sectors.
Here are the end of season highlights:

eCommerce

- More -
eCommerce was the big winner this year, with seasonal sales up 15.5% during the period
November 1 -December 24. Since Black Friday, eCommerce sales were up 18%. This sector has
shown year-over-year improvement every week since the beginning of the season, with double-
digit growth in all but one of those weeks.

Apparel
Specialty Apparel made something of a recovery, finishing down only 0.4% for the season to date
beginning on November 1st. Since Black Friday through December 24, the category is actually in
positive territory, showing a 2.3% year-over-year gain. However, the extra shopping day helped
the sales growth rates.

Women’s Apparel sales were down 0.3% for the season to date beginning on November 1st.
Taking a Black Friday to December 24 view, this category also finished the season in slightly
positive territory, up 1.5%, but again benefiting from the additional shopping day.

Men’s Apparel continued to show strength in the two weeks prior to December 24, bringing the
November 1 – December 24 season’s year-over-year growth up 3.9%. Footwear sales have
likewise improved, ending with an increase of 5% over the November-December period of last
year.

Electronics
After a strong November, electronics sales began to slow down in the first two weeks of
December. A spike in the week prior to December 24 helped the category finish the season up
5.9% for the November-December period and up 6% in the Black Friday to December 24 period.

Jewelry and Luxury

After a volatile two months, Jewelry ended the season up 5.6%, with both high and low ends of the
category showing marked strength. Again the extra shopping day helped the year-over-year
growth rate. Although the Luxury retail ex-jewelry category showed some weekly improvement
throughout December, it finished the season more with a slight increase of 0.8% over the 2008
holiday season. Luxury is another category that would have been lower without the additional
shopping day this year.

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For further information contact:

Meir Kahtan Jennifer Stalzer

+1-212-575-8188 +1-914-249-5325
Meir Kahtan Public Relations, LLC MasterCard Worldwide
mkahtan@rcn.com Jennifer_Stalzer@mastercard.com

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