Five of the six major service industries performed worse in April than in the same month last year, underscoring the fragility of the services sector, the government said Monday.

Sales paid for with credit cards rose 2.3 percent in April from a year earlier to 2.04 trillion yen, while the remaining five sectors all recorded falling sales, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a preliminary report.

But the value of sales paid for with credit cards overseas dropped 11.8 percent from a year earlier, following a decline in overseas trips triggered by the Iraq war and the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, a METI official said.