Global Consumer Confidence Index Continues to Rise

This month’s global consumer confidence Primary Index has risen to 50.9, up slightly from the score of 50.6 recorded in March. The Primary Index is a measure of consumer attitudes in 24 countries regarding the current and future state of local economies, personal finances, savings, and confidence to make large investments, as measured monthly by Ipsos.

Seven countries saw a significant increase in their Primary Index score, with Hungary (+7.2), Saudi Arabia (+4.6), Russia (+4.4), Israel (+3.7), Italy (+3.1), China (+2.6), and the US (+2.0) all seeing an increase of at least 1.5 points or more.

Whereas China (72.3), India (64.6), the US (63.6) and Sweden (62.8) continue to receive the highest marks among the 24 countries included in the index, Turkey ranks last (the only country with an index below 40) at 38.6.

Related to the Ipsos Consumer Confidence Index are three sub-indices: the Ipsos Jobs Index reflecting perceptions of job security, the Ipsos Expectations Index reflecting economic expectations, and the Ipsos Investment Index reflecting perceptions of the country’s investment climate.

April’s global Ipsos Jobs Index (58.8) has risen 1.3 points over the past three months and is up 3.2 points since this time last year. This month, Sweden (76.8) obtains the highest Job Index mark, outperforming both China (74.1) and the US (73.4). Consistent with previous findings dating back to January, Brazil (34.7) continues to record the lowest Jobs Index score among the 24 countries surveyed.

Hungary (61.9) experienced the largest Jobs Index gain over the last three months with an increase of 7.0 points. Sweden (76.8, +5.8 points) and China (74.1, +4.3 points) also see a relatively significant uptick in Job Index scores. On the other hand, both Poland (60.7) and France (55.2) saw Job Index score declines of more than 4 points.

The global Expectations Index score currently stands at 60.0, up 1.0 point over the last three months. China (73.5) and India (70.1) report the highest Expectations scores, while Turkey (45.4) reports lowest.

Eleven countries saw a significant increase of at least 1.5 points including Hungary (+8.7), Italy (+4.9), Saudi Arabia (+3.9), Spain (+3.9), Russia (+3.7), Brazil (+2.3), Argentina (+2.1), Israel (+2.0), Sweden (+1.9) Australia (+1.8), and Great Britain (+1.5). Conversely, only three countries recorded decreases of 1.5 points or more, with Poland (-5.0) experiencing the largest drop.

April’s global Investment Index (44.3) remains nearly unchanged with a three-month decrease 0.6 points. Nine countries saw gains of 1.5 points or more with Russia (+7.1), Saudi Arabia (+6.4), and Hungary (+5.3) displaying the most impressive increases in score. A total of twelve countries dropped in this month’s Index, with Mexico reporting the most significant decrease, down 7.7 points (42.2). China (71.1), India (66.2), the US (57.6) and Sweden (56.4) are the highest scoring countries. Japan (28.2), Turkey (31.7), Italy (32.2) and France (32.3) report the lowest Investment Index scores, falling below the threshold of 35.

These findings are based on a rolling average of data from Thomson Reuters/Ipsos’ Primary Consumer Sentiment Index (PCSI) collected in a monthly survey of consumers from 24 countries via Ipsos’ Global @dvisor online survey platform. For this survey, Ipsos interviews a total of 17,500+ adults aged 18-64 in the United States of America, Canada, and Israel, and age 16-64 in all 21 other countries each month. The monthly sample consists of 1,000+ individuals in each of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Great Britain and the USA, and 500+ individuals in each of Argentina, Belgium, Hungary, India, Israel, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden and Turkey.