MANILA, JULY 29, 2013 – Nielsen’s recent survey of consumer confidence and spending intentions shows that the Philippines is the world’s second most-confident consumers.
The survey revealed that the country recorded a three point increase with an index of 121. This is the highest consumer confidence index for the Philippines since the fourth quarter of 2010. The index was reported at 120 that makes the country second from Indonesia while Thailand and Malaysia are also featured among the world’s most optimistic nations despite recording slight declines.
Stuart Jamieson, managing director of Nielsen Philippines, said that the high confidence levels continue to sweep across Southeast Asian consumers compared to the rest of the world.
Filipino respondents feel optimistic on local job prospects for the next 12 months with 77% of them said that job prospects are excellent. This is followed by Indonesia with 75% and India with 72%. The survey also revealed that Filipino respondents show a great readiness to spend, 70% of them saves spare cash making them among the world’s biggest savers. Filipinos are now included in all-Asian list of the top 10 savers in the world. Aside from saving, growth of technology strikes interest for Filipino consumers. Around a third of Filipino consumers (31%) are spending their spare cash on new technology gadgets along with Thais (34%), Vietnamese (32%), Indonesians (31%).
“The current economic growth is moving more Filipinos to a better financial status. We are observing an increase in the middle class population. One way of displaying this new status is to acquire aspirational items and among these are gadgets. So if you were asking whether, Filipinos would continue to save or to spend money on gadgets, I’d say that they would continue allocating spare cash to savings and also using some of it to spend on technology products”, Jamieson concluded.
Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions was conducted between February 17 and March 8, 2013. Nielsen polled more than 29,000 online consumers in 58 countries throughout Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and North America, including 3,000 consumers in the six Southeast Asia countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Nielsen Holdings is a global information and measurement company.
