Consumer confidence index
Doha
Consumer sentiment in Qatar is now “highest in Middle East” with a peak score of 97.2, a MasterCard index reveals.
Consumers in Qatar are “extremely optimistic” about all five indicators measured in the ‘MasterCard Consumer Confidence Index,’ a release said on Monday.
When compared to the previous edition of the survey released last year, consumers are more optimistic about the stock market (97.8 vs. 91.7), regular income (97.5 vs. 95.7) and quality of life (97.3 vs. 97.2).
Consumers also remain very optimistic about employment (95.5 vs. 99.4), despite a slight decrease in its score when compared to the previous edition of the Index. The indicator for economy remained same as last year with a score of 98.
The latest findings also indicate that male respondents are more optimistic than female respondents about the coming months (97.5 vs. 96.9), and that consumers below the age of 30 years (98.2) are more optimistic than older respondents (96.2).
“We are delighted to note that consumer confidence of the Qatari populace is now highest in the Middle East”, said Raghav Prasad, general manager (Gulf Countries) MasterCard.
“Consumers are most optimistic about the stock market, and this outlook reflects the stability of the
Qatari economy and the investment opportunities that the government is creating by diversifying the economy.”
Across the Middle East, the consumer confidence level remains “very optimistic” with positive scores for all five indicators, despite slight declines when compared to the previous edition of the Index released six months ago.
Consumers are most optimistic about regular income (86.2 vs. 83.9) and employment (83.6 vs. 80.9), whereas results indicate a decline in consumer’s confidence about quality of life (74.0 vs. 78.1) and the stock market (75.6 vs. 78.1) their sentiment in relation to the economy has remained the same, at 80.3. The Middle East’s aggregate score of 78.5 remains higher than that of
Asia/Pacific (63.3) and Africa (78.1), as was the case in the previous survey.
In the Middle East, Qatar (97.2) overtakes Saudi Arabia (96.3) as the market leader with the highest level of consumer confidence, followed by the Oman (94.6), Kuwait (92.6), UAE (88.7), Egypt (78.6) and Lebanon (12.4).
The MasterCard Consumer Confidence Index is based on a survey conducted between July and August this year and involving some 12,205 respondents aged 18 – 64 in as many as 27 countries within Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa. This is the 42nd survey of Consumer Confidence conducted since 1993.
Respondents were asked five questions pertaining to their six month outlook on the economy, employment prospects, the local stock market, their regular income prospects and their quality of life.
The results of their responses were converted in five component indexes, which were averaged to form the MasterCard Index of Consumer Confidence (MWICC) score.
The MWICC Index score and the five component index scores range from 0 – 100 where 0 represents maximum pessimism, 100 represents maximum optimism and 50 represents neutrality.