News

Asia/Pacific consumers mostly optimistic; India leads the pack

August 3, 2012

Consumer confidence in Europe may be in shambles, but in Asia/Pacific countries, consumers are feeling pretty hopeful overall.

This measure comes from the MasterCard Wordwide Index of Consumer Confidence, which is based on a survey of 11,376 adults across the region. According to a survey recap posted at the  MasterCard newsroom, India recorded the highest level of confidence as of June 10, 2012, at 82.1 points out of a possible 100.

What's more, consumer optimism runs wide and deep across the Indian population, judging by a number of indicators: regular income (86.6); quality of life (84.1); the stock market (83.0); the economy (78.6); and employment (78.3).

Bangalore had the highest score for consumer confidence at 100. Chennai and New Delhi also scored high at 79 and 78.7, respectively. For Mumbai, the index stood at 69.3.

Of 25 Asia/Pacific countries polled, India has maintained the highest, and one of the most stable consumer confidence indices. China, Thailand and Vietnam also scored well at 77.4, 75.8 and 77.2, respectively.

Japan was the most pessimistic of the Asia/Pacific survey consumers, at 23.6 index points. And this was after a 7.4-point improvement from the previous 6 months, the survey said. Taiwan consumers were also glum; the index there was 25.7. Indonesia experienced the largest drop in confidence over the period falling from 76.1 to 57.4.

South Korea and Hong Kong, where consumer confidence had been grim, recorded the largest increases in confidence, rising 21.4 and 21. points respectively, to overall scores of 51.3 and 51.8 respectively — still just middling.

For more on this topic, visit the trends/statistics research center.