Consumer confidence in New Zealand has dropped in the last six months, despite expectations about better income prospects.
The MasterCard Worldwide Index of Consumer Confidence, which has been tracking consumer confidence levels since 1993, showed that confidence level in the country dropped 8.3 points to 42.7 (indexed to 100), which MasterCard said reflects a more pessimistic view of the world.
When asked about their outlook for the next six months about five key aspects (the economy, employment prospects, the local stock market, regular income prospects and quality of life), majority of the respondents said they were most concerned about quality of life.
While expectations around employment, the stock market and the economy were down, expectations related to regular income were positive.
Albert Naffah, MasterCard New Zealand country manager, said majority of New Zealanders feel optimistic about their income prospects for the next six months. The reason for this, he believes, is the greater focus on financial planning and the choice between saving and spending by consumers.
“What I think is most interesting is that these feelings of financial security are not necessarily translating into a more positive feeling about quality of life which supports the age-old adage that money doesn’t buy happiness,” he added.
Other interesting insights presented by the research showed that men are more positive in their outlook (index of 48.2) when compared to women (35.9), with the starkest differences in their outlook for New Zealand’s stock market (52.7 male / 27.8 female) and in the economy (47.0 male / 33.3 female).
The research also showed that New Zealanders are more positive with their outlook (42.7) as compared to their Australian counterparts (40.3). On the other hand, people from the trans-Tasman region have a clearly less optimistic outlook about their quality of life (36.1) and in the stock market (36.1).
In comparison with the rest of the nations in the Asia-Pacific region, New Zealand ranks as the 10th most optimistic nation out of 14 markets that were surveyed in terms of its overall outlook.