Today, the Reserve Bank released the results of the June 2018 round of its Consumer Confidence Survey (CCS)¹. The survey was conducted in six metropolitan cities - Bengaluru; Chennai; Hyderabad; Kolkata; Mumbai; and New Delhi - and obtained 5,264 responses on households’ perceptions and expectations on the general economic situation, the employment scenario, the overall price situation and their own income and spending.

Highlights:

I. Consumer confidence showed signs of improvement in the June 2018 round, with the current situation index (CSI)² rising by 2.8 points, even though it remained in the pessimistic zone; the future expectations index (FEI) recorded a marginal decline (Chart 1).

Note: Please see the excel file for time series data

II. The rise in CSI was, to a large extent, driven by improvement in the sentiments on the general economic situation; however, the proportion of respondents expecting improvement for one year ahead dropped marginally in relation to the May round of the survey (Table 1).

III. In line with the improvement in perception on the current economic situation, a higher proportion of respondents than in the May round indicated that the employment scenario had improved over the year gone by; however, their expectations for the year ahead remained unchanged (Table 2).

IV. Households continued to remain pessimistic about prices, with sentiments on both the current and future periods deteriorating marginally (Tables 3 and 4).

V. Respondents were slightly less optimistic about their income than in the preceding round of the survey (Table 5).

VI. Most of the respondents reported household spending over the past year with their sentiments ticking up for both the current period and over the year ahead (Table 6).

VII. Households were more upbeat than in the previous round about non-essential expenditure, possibly due to improved sentiments on the general economic situation and the employment scenario (Table 8).

¹ The survey results are based on the views of respondents.

² CSI and FEI are compiled on the basis of net responses on the economic situation, income, spending, employment and the price level for the current period and a year ahead, respectively. CSI/FEI = 100 + Average of Net Responses of the above parameters.