The Hindu Business Line : Indians to go on a spending spree in 2007: Study

Driven by high confidence levels on the state of their personal finance, Indians are all set to go on a spending spree in 2007. In an AC Nielsen study of Internet consumers that gauged current confidence levels, spending habits/intentions and current major concerns of consumers across the globe, Indians (61 per cent) were the second most optimistic group of people after Denmark (71 per cent) about spending in the coming year.

Globally, 43 per cent of the world's Internet consumers think it is a good/excellent time to buy the things they want and need in the next 12 months. Region-wise, nearly half of North Americans are set to go on a shopping spree, followed by 44 per cent of Latinos and 41 per cent of consumers in Asia Pacific.

High Optimism

The high spending intention of Indians is fuelled by high optimism in the state of their personal finance. While globally, 58 per cent of world consumers are optimistic about the state of their personal finance in the next 12 months, Indians at 87 per cent were toppers.

At 53 per cent positive, Asia Pacific recorded an increase of four percentage points from 49 per cent in the last survey with Indonesia (77 per cent) ranked the second after India, followed by the Pacific (72 per cent).

Holidays (30 per cent) overtook all others apart from investing in mutual fund and shares, to become Indian consumers' top choice for disposing their spare cash, followed by 32 per cent for home improvement and 27 per cent each of out of home entertainment and new technology respectively. About 30 per cent also choose to pay off debts/credit card bills/loans with their spare cash.

The survey conducted in late October/early November, polled about 25,408 Internet users in 46 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, Baltics and West Asia.