Data Point. No acche din yet for most consumers

Recent GDP data may say otherwise, but most Indians don’t expect acche din just yet. According to Credit Suisse’s new “Emerging Consumer Survey 2015”, just around 10 per cent of Indian consumers that took part in the survey (sample size of 16,000 consumers) believed that 2014 was a good time to make a purchase. What’s more, only 40 per cent expect to see an improvement in their personal finances in the next six months.

There was an improvement on the inflation expectations front, with fewer Indian consumers anticipating an increase in inflation in the next 12 months, at around 30 per cent predicting a rise compared to over 40 per cent in 2012. To top it off, their expectations of a change in household income in the next 12 months was around 4 per cent, lower than in countries like Brazil and Indonesia.

Despite this, Indian consumers were the most upbeat among the nine countries in the survey, followed by Brazil and Indonesia. Saudi Arabia was fourth in the rankings, with China, Turkey, Mexico, Russia and South Africa rounding up the nine countries. The survey focused on four main questions posed to 16,000 consumers, namely, “In your opinion, is now a good time to make a major purchase?”, “Do you think the state of your own personal finances over the next six months will be better, worse or the same?”, “What do you expect will happen to inflation (the price of goods and services) in the next 12 months?” and “In what way do you expect your household income to change in the next 12 months”

The data shows at a headline level, more consumers view now as a bad time to make a purchase than good, with a net balance of minus 4.4 per cent.

The overall barometer of future finances was also similar to the previous year. As far as inflation expectations go, the relative rankings of countries have not changed dramatically, though Russia has slipped into the worst position. When it comes to income expectations, Brazil and Indonesia were the most optimistic, as seen in previous surveys, while Saudi Arabia and Turkey brought up the rear.