Vietnam - Vietnam consumers spend less, save more – Nielsen

Ninety-one percent of local respondents have admitted that they have changed their spending habits to practice thrift this year, Nielsen said in its report about the consumer confidence index released Monday.

Vietnam’s consumer confidence index dipped 8 points to 87 in Q3 2012, marking the lowest confidence since Q1 2009, said Nielsen, the global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy, citing its latest global consumer confidence findings.

In the latest round of the survey, conducted between August 10 and September 7, 2012, global consumer confidence increased one index point to 92 in Q3 2012, and is up four index points from the same period the previous year (Q3 2011), the report states.

Only 40 percent of Vietnamese online respondents believe their local job prospects will be good to excellent over the next 12 months, decreasing 6 percentage points from Q2 2012 and 18 points since the beginning of the year.

Vietnam is among the five bottom nations that were least optimistic about local job prospects in quarter 3, besides Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

Cautious sentiment

Forty-two percent of Vietnamese respondents believe their personal finance in the coming year will be good to excellent, down from 51 percent in Quarter 2.

Consumer’s cautious sentiments have increased as 73 percent of Vietnamese stated “this is not a good time to buy things they want and need.”

With fuel prices rising five times within the third quarter, 24 percent of Vietnamese respondents raised utility bills (electricity, gas, heating, etc.) as their biggest concern. This was followed by the economy and job security, at 20 percent and 16 percent respectively.

91 percent of respondents reported a change in their spending to save on household expenses, increasing from 86 percent in Q2 and 84 percent in Q1 2012, the report said.

Gas and electricity remain the most ‘cutback-expenses’ among 68 percent of respondents, followed by new clothes (67%), out of home entertainment (66%) and telephone expenses (55%).

The Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions, established in 2005, measures consumer confidence, major concerns and spending intentions among more than 29,000 Internet consumers in 58 countries. Consumer confidence levels above and below a baseline of 100 indicate degrees of optimism and pessimism.

The Q3 survey polled more than 29,000 online consumers in 58 countries throughout Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and North America.

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