Indian consumers most optimistic in Asia Pacific: MasterCard

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Indian consumers are the most optimistic about regular income and economy, among others, in the Asia Pacific region and the degree of optimism is 'deep-rooted' as well as 'all-pervasive', says a survey.

According to the MasterCard Worldwide Index of Consumer Confidence, India is very optimistic with a score of 82.1 points -- the highest level of optimism in the first half of 2012 out of the 14 markets surveyed in Asia-Pacific region.

The Index score is calculated with zero as the most pessimistic, 100 as most optimistic and 50 as neutral.

The high scores that India achieved was on all the five indicators that determined the overall scores for the market and included factors like regular income, quality of life, stock market, economy and employment.

Consumer sentiment in India has stabilised. In the first half of 2012 India scored 82.1 points, higher by just 0.9 points from the six months ago period.

"Despite the ups and downs in the economy, the overall sentiment reveals optimism across the board, most strikingly with respect to the stock market and quality of life," MasterCard Worldwide Division president South Asia T.V. Seshadri said.

The survey conducted between April 24, 2012 and June 10 2012 on 11,376 respondents aged 18-64 in 25 countries within Asia/Pacific, West Asia and Africa.

Of the four cities surveyed in India, Bangalore scored the highest (100 Index points) thus giving a boost to the overall score.

Consumers in Chennai scored 79 points, followed by New Delhi at 78.7 points. Surprisingly, Mumbai recorded the least score in consumer confidence with 69.3 Index points in the first half of 2012.

The survey further noted that overall, only 6 out of 14 Asia-Pacific markets polled recorded positive sentiment compared to the last six months.

The Asia/Pacific region saw a slight improvement from 52.1 index points in the second half of 2011 to 57.2 Index points in the current phase.

While the index showed stability in key indicators of employment, economy and quality of life, a slight improvement was seen in key indicators of regular income and stock market.

Extreme deterioration were recorded in Indonesia, down by 18.7 index points to 57.4 index points in the current phase compared to the data recorded in February 2012.

Malaysia witnessed significant jump in consumer optimism as the index rose by 17.1 index points compared to the previous six months, followed by China with 12.6 points and Thailand (11.9 points).

Meanwhile, developed markets such as Japan recorded a very pessimistic outlook towards the economy despite an improvement by 7.4 index points, the survey said.