CAIRO: Egypt moved up 10 points in a consumer confidence index during the third quarter of fiscal year 2010, scoring 98 points to rank 21st worldwide. The latest Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Index showed that the global average fell three points to 90 from the last quarter. The findings, based on research by the Nielsen Company, a global information and measurement company, places Egypt third against the Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates compared to other countries in the Middle East. While a 10-point increase is considerable, it is a slight fall from the 95 points Egypt received for the first quarter of 2010. Venkatesh Bala, chief economist at The Cambridge Group, part of The Nielsen Company, said, “The reversal of global consumer confidence in the third quarter highlights the fragility and uncertainty of the current global economy, its ongoing vulnerability to macroeconomic shocks, and finally, the divergence in the pace of recovery among international markets and regions.” Notwithstanding Bala's analysis, several countries demonstrated particularly strong consumer confidence levels. India beat out the competition, attaining 129 points, next was Thailand, with 117, tailed closely by Australia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, all with 115. In spite of Egyptian consumer confidence climbing steadily, 71 percent of Egyptians believe that the local economy is witnessing negative effects due to the global economic malaise, a 2 percent rise from the second quarter of 2010. Furthermore, asked whether Egyptian consumers felt that the national economy would break out of a relative slump, 41 percent responded positively, whereas that figure stood at 48 percent at the end of the second quarter. As a result of Egyptian consumers' economic outlook, 64 percent stated that compared to 2009, they are have changed their spending habits to save on household goods, while this number was 57 percent three months ago. To this end, 48 percent stated that they are now spending less on new clothes, 42 percent on take-away meals, and 38 percent on both telephone expenses and upgrading technology, such as PCs or telephones. The survey also asked how respondents would use excess cash once essential living costs had been covered, with 35 percent of Egyptians saying they would place excess cash into their savings, a drop of 5 percent over the previous quarter; while 34 percent said ‘new clothes', only a 1 percent drop, and another 28 percent stated ‘new technology products' versus 30 percent just three months ago. However, in the next 12 months, 10 percent felt ‘excellent' and 36 percent of consumers in Egypt felt ‘good' that local job prospects would improve, which represents a sizeable increase of 6 and 12 percent over the last quarter, respectively. The most optimist country worldwide was India, where 62 percent of respondents felt ‘good' about future local job prospects, in addition to another 29 percent who felt ‘excellent.' In a similar vein, Egyptian consumers are more confident regarding their personal finances in the coming 12 months: in the second quarter 7 percent felt ‘excellent' and 34 percent felt ‘good', while for the last quarter, those that felt ‘excellent' improved to 11 percent and those that felt ‘good' jumped to 51 percent. India, again, topped the list as the most optimistic country regarding the state of consumers' personal finances in the coming 12 months, with 69 percent stating that they felt ‘good' and 14 percent feeling ‘excellent.' Should economic conditions ameliorate, Egyptian consumers indicated that they would continue to make efforts to maintain conservative spending habits mainly on take-away meals, receiving 23 percent of the votes, followed by gas and electricity, with 19 percent, and 18 percent said they would try to reduce telephone expenses. The Nielsen survey was conducted between Sept. 3-21, 2010 and polled over 26,000 consumers in 53 countries throughout Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and North America about their confidence levels and economic outlook.
