According to Nielsen global survey, consumer confidence level in India jumped six points to 121 in the first quarter of the current year as against 115 in the previous quarter, the highest optimism level since the fourth quarter of 2012. Consumer confidence levels above and below a baseline of 100 indicate degrees of optimism and pessimism respectively. India retains its position as the second most-optimistic country in the survey behind Indonesia with 124 points, while Philippines with 116 points stands at third place.
The Nielsen survey highlighted that 68 percent of the polled respondents in India are of the view that the economy is going through a recessionary phase and around 54 percent of respondents feels that the country will be out of this recessionary phase in the next 12 months. Despite the challenge of high inflation, consumers are hoping for a better fiscal year and optimistic that overall sentiment and investment will pick-up gradually. The survey indicated that there is a renewed focus on savings for the long term as the intention of online respondents investing spare cash in savings is up by six percentage points to 68 percent from last quarter. Around 32 percent of respondents want to invest in a retirement fund as comparison to 23 percent in Q4 of 2013. Further, about 36 percent intend to invest in the stock market and in mutual funds, up from 29 per cent in last quarter.
The survey further added that around 54 percent of online polled respondents are feels that this is a good time to buy things. 49 percent of polled respondents are looking to invest in new technology products and buy new clothes. Nearly 74 percent of the polled respondents in India are optimistic about job prospects over the next 12 months and the sentiment is up by 4 percentage points from the last quarter.
The latest round of survey was conducted during the period February 17-March 7, 2014. The Nielsen Global Survey, established in 2005, measure consumer confidence, major concerns and spending intentions among respondents.
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