Cheaper phone calls, clothes and vegetables slowed consumer price growth in the euro zone in December as expected despite more expensive fuel and cigarettes.
The European Union's statistics office Eurostat said consumer inflation in the euro zone was 0.4% month-on-month in December and 1.4% year-on-year, down from 1.5% in November.
Energy prices rose the most at 2.9% year-on-year in December, while unprocessed food gained 1.9%.
Without these two volatile components, or what the ECB calls core inflation, prices rose by 1.1% year-on-year, the same as in November and in October.
Some economists believe that a better measure of core inflation is the one that takes out not only energy and unprocessed food but also alcohol and tobacco, the prices of which are often influenced by government tax changes.
But this measure also held stable at 0.9% in December, unchanged form the previous two months.
The ECB wants to keep inflation below but close to 2% over the medium-term and has been buying government bonds on the secondary market to inject more cash into the banking system and so to stimulate credit to the economy.
But while the euro zone economy is growing at its fastest pace in a decade and unemployment is at nine-year lows, this has not yet translated into significantly faster price growth.
