German retail sales, a closely watched measure of household confidence, inched higher in November, suggesting consumer sentiment in Europe's top economy is holding steady, official data showed on Thursday.

Retailers' sales edged up by 0.2 percent in November compared with October, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.

The previous month, retail sales had slipped by 0.1 percent.

On a 12-month basis, business increased even more strongly, jumping by 2.3 percent in November compared with the same month loast year, the statisticians calculated.

Based on the data for the 11 months to November, retail sales for the whole of 2015 were expected to rise by between 2.8 percent and 3.1 percent, Destatis added.

Last month, a leading consumer sentiment survey, conducted by the GfK market research institute, found that consumer confidence is on the rise, apparently unaffected for the time being by the November 13 terror attacks in France.