Almost three-quarter of UAE respondents (73 per cent) believed the job market would be good or excellent in the next 12 months.
Dubai: UAE consumer confidence edged up three index points from the second quarter to a score of 112 and had the fifth-highest scores of the 60 countries measured. Regional Consumer Confidence also increased (96) as well as all five countries measured in the Middle East/Africa region in the third quarter. UAE reported the highest consumer confidence in the region, followed by Saudi Arabia, where the Consumer Confidence index increased three points to 105, four points in Pakistan to 103, four points in Egypt to 85 and one point in South Africa to 86.
“Consumers in the UAE continue to be bullish about future economic prospects,” said Arslan Ashraf, managing director, Nielsen Arabian Peninsula.
“Despite the fact that rising rents are driving inflation north and consumers are mitigating risk via savings, they are still upbeat about future job prospects.”
The Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions, established in 2005, measures perceptions of local job prospects, personal finances and immediate spending intentions among more than 30,000 respondents with Internet access in 60 countries. Consumer confidence levels above and below a baseline of 100 indicate degrees of optimism and pessimism, respectively. The latest results reflect an outlook of cautious optimism, as every region’s consumer confidence score improved compared to the previous quarter.
Job prospects improve faster than personal finances
Almost three-quarter of UAE respondents (73 per cent) believed the job market would be good or excellent in the next 12 months, a 5 percentage-point increase from the second quarter. While perceptions of personal finances have become more positive, UAE consumers’ overall sentiment about personal finances has not improved as significantly as their sentiment about their employment opportunities. Sixty-four per cent of UAE respondents rated their personal finances as good or excellent for the upcoming year, compared to 60 per cent in the previous quarter.
Discretionary spending intentions remain stable
Only 65 per cent of UAE respondents believed their country was in recession in the third quarter. In addition, quarter-on-quarter discretionary spending intentions increased 6 percentage points in the third quarter for plans to save (52%), followed by 5 percentage-points gains for investing in stock/mutual funds (15 per cent) and for saving for retirement (14 per cent). One-fourth intends paying off debts/credit cards/loans (25 per cent) which represents an increase of 1 percentage point vs Q2 2014. Thirteen per cent of UAE respondents said they had no spare cash, a decline of 4 percentage points from the second quarter.
Concerns about job security in UAE increase
In the Middle East/Africa regions, job security was the biggest or second biggest concern for 29 per cent of respondents, respectively, a decline of 2 percentage points, from the second quarter. Worries about the economy, however, increased 2 percentage points in the Middle East/Africa (to 22 per cent). In the UAE, 38 per cent of respondents said job security was their biggest or second biggest concern for the next six months, an increase of 7 percentage points from the previous quarter, followed by concerns about parent’s welfare and happiness which rose 1 percentage point to 20 per cent.
About the survey
The Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions was conducted during August 13 – September 5, 2014 and polled more than 30,000 online consumers in 60 countries throughout Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East/Africa and North America. The sample has quotas based on age and gender for each country based on its Internet users and is weighted to be representative of Internet consumers.
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