Thumbs up for Narendra Modi? India tops Credit Suisse Emerging Consumer Survey for 4th time in a row

A Credit Suisse survey that measures consumer sentiment in eight major emerging countries has put India at the top of the list again — for the fourth time in a row, highlighting income optimism, readiness to make a major purchase, robust personal finances, among other benign factors. India ranked number one on the Credit Suisse Emerging Consumer Survey in 2015, just after Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister the previous year, and has kept that position ever since, beating China all these years. In 2014’s Credit Suisse Emerging Consumer Survey, India ranked fourth after China, Brazil and Indonesia.

Credit Suisse conducts 14,000 face-to-face interviews across eight emerging countries namely India, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Turkey and South Africa for its Emerging Consumer survey. In the 2018 survey, India ranked number one on various parameters such as income expectations, income history, time for a major purchase and personal finances.

One of the key findings of the survey was the increased wealth in the emerging markets. “Between 2000 and 2017, emerging economies nearly doubled their share of global wealth from 11 percent to 19 percent, with their portion estimated to reach 22 percent in the next five years,” the firm said in its report.

In an interview to CNBC TV18, Richard Kirsley, Head of Global Equity Research Product at Credit Suisse said that optimism with respect to income growth expectations has improved in the country. Further, Kirsley said that as compared to last year which has faced a temporary blip in consumer sentiment due to demonetisation, the current year seems to have moved on since note ban.

“In last year’s survey, the demonetisation last year had impacted the consumer sentiment. The negative sentiment of demonetisation seems to have washed away.” Further, according to Kirsley, after the implementation of GST, the country is slated to benefit from the shift from unbranded to branded sector. Richard Kirsley observed that the non-cash transactions in India has seen an uptick in the last one-year period.