Indian consumers more confident but pessimism remains; BluFin CCI up 41.4 in April

NEW DELHI: Indian consumers are more confident than they were in December 2011 but still concerned about the economy. The BluFin Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) rose 3.7% from 39.9 in March to 41.1 in April 2012.

This is the fourth straight month when the CCI has gone up, indicating that consumer sentiment is consistently improving after bottoming out in December 2011.

BluFin CEO Rashid Bilimoria said, "The April rise is particularly noteworthy as the last month's survey was the first one after the Union budget. However, we still appear to be some time away from seeing a buoyant consumer despite the recent RBI reduction in interest rates, and the current positive trend will need to be validated by improvements in the coming months to indicate a sustainable positive trend."

The BluFin CCI measures the pulse of the Indian consumer with regard to the economy and spending behaviour. The Index is based on a nation-wide monthly surveys of 4000 respondents across 18 cities conducted by TNS.

The Aggregate CCI consists of two key component indices, the Present Situation Index and the Future Expectations Index. These in turn are comprised of three sub-indices, the Inflation Sentiment Index, the Employment Sentiment Index, and the Spending Sentiment Index.

Other highlights of the April 2012 CCI are:

With a score of 39.0 for the Future Expectations Index, consumers are still pessimistic about the economy's prospects. Consumers are more comfortable about their Present Situation with a score of 47.3.

At 28.3 the BluFin Spending Sentiment Index score has improved by 5.2% over the previous month across regions except the East where there has been a slight decline. Improvement has also been observed in sentiment about the purchase of big-ticket items such as vehicles and homes in the month of April 2012.

The BluFin Inflation Sentiment Index at 26.18 shows an 11.2% increase in confidence regarding inflation from the previous month, though still on the pessimistic side.

At 47.7 the BluFin Employment Sentiment Index, which remained relatively flat for the last few months, shows that consumers are relatively less pessimistic about their employment situation. While they are comfortable about their current jobs they are less confident about the availability of alternative employment.

The North and South of India lead the consumer confidence levels with scores of 45.1 and 44.3 respectively.

Mangalore, Hyderabad and Bhubaneshwar with scores of 53.6, 48.8 and 46.5 are the most upbeat cities while Guwahati, Kochi and Ludhiana with scores of 31.2, 32.2 and 32.7 are the most pessimistic.

The next BluFin Consumer Confidence Index for India will be announced on 13 June 2012.