Today, the Reserve Bank released the results of the September 2018 round of its Consumer Confidence Survey (CCS)¹. The survey was conducted in 13 major cities² – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram - and obtained 5,364 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. The current situation index (CSI)³ waned in the September 2018 round reflecting worsening of consumers’ perception on the general economic situation and the employment scenario.

II. A marginal uptick is observed in the future expectations index (FEI) on the back of optimistic sentiments on future income and the evolving price situation (Chart 1).

Note: Please see the excel file for time series data

III. Perceptions on the current general economic situation dropped as compared with the preceding round and remained in the pessimistic zone; over the 12-month ahead horizon, consumers’ outlook remained broadly unchanged to that in the previous round (Table 1).

IV. Responses on the general economic situation largely tracked those on the employment situation with the outlook on employment for the year ahead dipping below expectations in the previous round (Table 2).

V. While the majority of the respondents remained highly pessimistic about the price situation, there was a slight improvement in expectations one year ahead (Tables 3 and 4).

VI. Opinion was almost equally divided on the direction of change in income in the last one year, but the majority felt that income would increase in the next year (Table 5).

VII. The survey portrays reduced optimism on spending by consumers, particularly in respect of non-essential items (Table 6, 7 and 8).

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

² The results for all the 13 cities from the September 2017 through June 2018 rounds are released in the attached tables. Further, city-wise sample size has been revised in proportion to number of households of each city as per Census 2011, keeping the overall sample size at 5,400.

³ 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.