Consumer confidence improves in April

The consumer confidence in the country improved marginally in April, a fourth straight month of upward trend. In urban areas, though, the undertone still remains that of pessimism, according to the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) by BluFin.

The score on CCI moved up to 41.1 for April from 39.9 in March 2012. A score below 50 reflects pessimism. Neither CCI nor its three sub-indices — the spending sentiment, the inflation sentiment and the employment sentiment — entered the optimistic zone of over 50 in April. The BluFin CCI is a key ‘aggregate’ indicator that assesses the pulse of urban Indian consumers with regard to the economy and spending behaviour. It includes data collected from 4,000 respondents across 18 cities, in partnership with TNS, a custom market research company.

The BluFin CCI has been designed under the guidance of Sam Thomas, a professor of finance at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, USA. BluFin is a market-defining financial information and content company. CEO Rashid Bilimoria said the April rise is particularly noteworthy as the survey was the first after the March Budget. But, it still appears to be some time away from seeing a buoyant consumer despite the recent Reserve Bank of India reduction in interest rates.

The current positive trend will need to be validated by improvements in the coming months to indicate a sustainable positive trend, he said.