Consumer confidence moves up in November on festival purchases

The current level of 41.6 is the highest in the last six months

Building on improvement in October, the consumer sentiment moved up in November due to spurt in purchases during the festival period, according to BulFin Consumer Confidence Index (CCI).

The monthly CCI which tracks Indian consumer behaviour rose to 41.6 in November from 38.2 in October, according BluFin, the financial information and content company, said in statement today.

Despite inflationary concerns, Indian consumers responded positively to the festive season. Reading on CCI for October 38.2 up from 36.7 in September 2012.

Although the index remains in the pessimistic range, its current level is the highest in the last six months. This perhaps indicates that Indian consumers are slightly more confident about overall economic conditions as compared to the last two quarters.

Referring to performance trend on specific factors, Blufin said improvements in the Spending Sentiment Index up by 1.8 to 26.9 and Employment Sentiment Index up by 1.2 to 43.4 for November were the key contributors to this upward trend.

The Future Expectations Index is still well behind at 38.7, with a moderate rise of 3.6 points over the previous month, it added.

The rising score since past two months and the slight uptick compared to the previous year could be an early sign of the consumer sector eventually bottoming out and making way for a recovery. However, the current positive trend will be validated provided this upward pattern persists in the coming months, it added.

The Index is designed to measure how consumers feel about the economy and their ability and desire to spend across India, and includes data collected from 4,000 respondents across 18 cities.