Consumer confidence remains stable in Asia Pacific with a meagre increase of 0.05 points in the overall score, according to the Mastercard Index of Consumer Confidence (H1 2016). Bangladesh among the countries, on the other hand, posts optimistic confidence with 4.3 points increase from the previous year.
Overall stable in Asia Pacific: Consumer confidence in the Asia Pacific markets remains stable, says the Index, increasing by just 0.05 points to 59.72 in H1 2016 from 59.67 points in H2 2015.
The most notable gainers: Taiwan, which experienced extreme deterioration in consumer confidence in the previous survey recorded the largest improvement in the current survey. Philippines, India and Malaysia also saw improvements of at least 5 points.
Optimistic countries: The developing markets of India (97.6), Philippines (95.2), Vietnam (94.9) and Myanmar (99.8) remain extremely optimistic in their outlook. Consumer confidence in Bangladesh (71.6), previously in the optimistic territory, posted slight increases of 4.3 points.
Decline in confidence: Declines were recorded in seven out of 17 Asia Pacific markets, with significant deterioration seen in Indonesia (-14.7), Hong Kong (-12.4) and Singapore (-10.7). The decreases recorded in Hong Kong,Japan (-8.8) and Singapore moved these markets from neutral into pessimistic territory.
Mastercard has been running the MICC survey for the last 20 years. This year, the survey was conducted among 8,746 respondents, aged 18 to 64 in 17 Asia Pacific markets in June and July, 2016. The respondents were asked to give a six-month outlook on five economic factors including the economy, employment prospects, regular income prospects, the stock market and their quality of life. The Index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, with zero as the most pessimistic, 100 as the most optimistic and 50 as neutral.
