Eurozone inflation continued to fall in February, thanks to a sharp slowdown in the rate of food and drink price rises, official data showed Friday, but the drop was smaller than expected.

The increase in consumer prices from a year ago dipped to 2.6 percent in February from 2.8 percent in January, the EU's statistics agency said. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg and FactSet had predicted that the rate of inflation would fall to 2.5 percent.