Sharp drop in S’porean consumer confidence, says MasterCard
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SINGAPORE — Consumer confidence in Singapore has plummeted, according to an index compiled by MasterCard.
On a scale of 0 to 100, Singapore dropped almost 21 points to score 44.3 on MasterCard’s Consumer Confidence Index. Six months before, Singapore scored 65.2. On average, consumer confidence fell 6.4 per cent across the region to an average of 59.7 points, according to a press statement Thursday (Feb 18) by the company.
The drop in confidence was among the most drastic among the 17 markets surveyed. Only Sri Lanka saw a bigger drop of 25.2 points.
The fall in confidence in Singapore was driven by pessimism about the stock market, the economy and employment prospects.
There was a distinct difference between younger and older Singaporeans though. Singaporeans aged 30 and under were optimistic, while older Singaporeans were much more pessimistic.
Ms Deborah Heng, group head and general manager, MasterCard Singapore, said: “Asia Pacific, as a whole, is experiencing uncertainty in the economic environment. Although the region’s overall confidence has dampened, the results from the MasterCard Index of Consumer Confidence have shown that young adults in Singapore have a positive outlook in areas of the economy, regular income and quality of life.”
On the whole, Singaporeans were more optimistic than Malaysians (32.0) and Australians (42.4) but more pessimistic than Hong Kongers (44.4) and Indonesians (76.5). Overall, the most optimistic consumers were in Myanmar with a score of 95.7 while Asia’s most pessimistic people were the Taiwanese with a score of 28.9.
MasterCard surveyed 8,779 respondents, aged 18 to 64 from 17 Asia Pacific markets in November and December last year. They were asked to give a six-month outlook on five economic factors including the economy, employment prospects, regular income prospects, stock market sentiments and their quality of life.
