Consumer mood mixed in Indonesia

Warc, 1 February 2013

JAKARTA: Consumers in Indonesia remain confident regarding their personal financial prospects, but hesitant about making major purchases, new figures show.

InsightAsia, the research group, surveyed 500 people in Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan, and found the overall barometer of popular sentiment stood at 100 points in January, an exactly neutral score.

This figure, had, however, increased by seven points when compared with the same time in 2012, the analysis revealed.

By way of comparison, Malaysia registered 116 points on this metric, falling to 108 points for China and 106 points in Singapore, all indicating that the consumer mood is positive.

Thailand was in negative territory on the same measure, however, with 96 points, while Vietnam recorded the lowest returns, with 72 points.

Looking more specifically at Indonesia, the panel logged a reading of 74 points when discussing the current economic climate, rising to 119 points upon assessing the situation for the coming 12 months.

Elsewhere, some 40% of Indonesian respondents proved either "very" or "somewhat" satisfied with their personal financial circumstances, and 67% were optimistic about their future prospects here.

When discussing purchasing big ticket items like furniture, refrigerators or television sets, fully 65% of those polled agreed it was a "bad time" to make such acquisitions, whereas 12% thought it was a "very good" moment to do so.

Data sourced from Jakarta Globe; additional content by Warc staff