A look at surprising shift in India's consumer spending habits over the last 10 years
Indians spent more on services like healthcare and education between 2013 and 2023. Spending on essentials like food, clothing, and housing decreased. National Account Statistics 2024 data reveals this shift in consumer spending. This change refle...
In the last 10 years, consumers have shifted towards services, away from food, clothing, and housing, according to the National Account Statistics 2024 data. The share of essentials has declined in private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) between FY13 and FY23 while that on health and education among others rose.
Health saw 8.2% growth and education 7.5% growth. Overall, private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) grew by an average of 6%.
Source: MoSPI, ET calculations
Housing expenses dropped from 16.4% to 13% and clothing from 6.1% to 4.8%. Transport and communication also saw substantial growth at 8.2% and 7.8% respectively.
Source: MoSPI, ET calculations The top spending areas were food (27.8%), transport services (9.3%), housing rentals (9.2%), personal transport operation (6.8%), and bread and cereals (6.3%).
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Source: MoSPI, ET calculations Food and beverages remain the largest spending category, but their share decreased from 30.5% to 28.2%. Within this category, packaged food experienced the highest growth at 10.4%, followed by meat (8.7%), fish and seafood (8.3%), and eggs (7.1%).
