India races ahead in consumer survey while China slips

The latest Credit Suisse Research Institute’s Emerging Consumer Survey reveals, with the belief that the new government will provide a stable regime, consumers in India are more optimistic. What’s more with a slowdown in China, India has raced India ahead four ranks while China slipped to the fifth rank.

The survey found that the mood of consumers in 2015 across nine emerging economies is “not brimming with confidence”. More consumers believe this is a bad time to make a big purchase (the difference between those who believe it is and those who say it is a good time is 4.4 percentage points). India, though, has seen a change in momentum after 2014’s general election, said the study, adding, average household incomes increased 10 percent in India in 2014 after remaining nearly the same for two years. This revival in consumer sentiment has primarily been driven by urban India, where household incomes went up 12 percent, the study added.

For the fifth edition of the survey, Credit Suisse partnered with global market research firm Nielsen, which conducted nearly 16,000 face-to-face interviews with consumers across the emerging economies of Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and South Africa. The survey also looked at mobility and connectivity as one of the key themes. E-commerce across these nine countries could become bigger as a share of total retail sales than in developed economies, said the study.