Mumbai: The LSEG-Ipsos monthly primary consumer sentiment index (PCSI) consumer confidence has further improved in February 2024, over January 2024, according to the LSEG-Ipsos primary consumer sentiment index (PCSI). Overall, there was a 2.9 percentage points increase in February 2024, over the previous month, as India continues to show resilience despite the stressed global macro forces, and its score was 69.4 (highest globally).

The PCSI is driven by the aggregation of the four weighted sub-indices and the report showed a positive uptick across all the four sub-indices: the PCSI current personal financial conditions (“Current Conditions”) Sub-Index was up 4.2 percentage points; the PCSI investment climate (“Investment”) sub-index moved up 4.2  percentage points; the PCSI economic expectations (“Expectations”) sub-index was up 1.7 percentage points and the PCSI employment confidence (“Jobs”) sub-index increased 2.5 percentage points.

How did the global markets stack up?

Global markets provided interesting trends – some markets witnessed an uptick in the sentiment index and some markets witnessed a downward slide in consumer sentiment.

The Global Consumer Confidence Index is the average of all surveyed countries’ Overall or “National” indices. This month’s installment is based on a monthly survey of more than 21,000 adults under the age of 75 from 29 countries conducted on Ipsos’ Global Advisor online platform. This survey was fielded between 26 January and 9 February 2024.

Consumer sentiment in 29 countries

Among the 29 countries, India (69.4) holds the highest National Index score this month. Indonesia (65.2) and Thailand (60.4) are the other countries with a National Index score of 60 or higher.

“We continue to witness stable conditions in terms of the economy, personal finances, as consumers are less stressed about running their households and daily spends, and are also buoyant about discretionary spends, for investments, savings and buying big ticket items. Interestingly, sentiment around jobs has also improved as some companies are hiring in the new fiscal. Our survey captures the pulse of the consumer and gauges how consumer sentiment moves from month to month, as it has ramifications for marketers. In a depressed macro environment, it would be natural for consumers to cutback, and it resets consumer priorities. But in the reverse scenario (which was seen in Feb 2024), consumers are willing to splurge and  generally feel good about the economy and the job market. Also, the interim Budget had no big surprises in terms of direct and indirect taxes – govt did not burden the consumers more. Food inflation has also been under control,” said Ipsos India CEO Amit Adarkar.