Filipino consumers are the third most optimistic in the world, the Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions for the third quarter of the year revealed.
According to the survey, Filipino consumers scored 115 points, behind consumers in India and Indonesia, in terms of optimism of consumers regarding their abilities to support their lifestyles.
After the Philippines’s score of 115, Thailand’s Consumer Confidence Index Score surged to 113 to land at fourth place. The global consumer confidence average is at 98 points.
The survey revealed that Filipino consumers consider job security as a key worry over the next six months. However, the number of respondents who saw this as a key worry went down from 36 percent during the first two quarters of the year to 34 percent in the third quarter.
The second-biggest concern of Filipinos is health. The percentage of respondents that saw health as a concern has steadily risen from only 19 percent during the first quarter, to 25 percent in the second quarter and 27 percent in the third quarter.
The concern regarding work/life balance is tied at second spot, with 27 percent of Filipino respondents seeing this issue as a worry over the next six months.
Saving for the future has steadily become an important goal among Filipinos, with 67 percent of respondents indicating that they set aside savings after covering essential living expenses.
On this aspect, Filipinos and Thai consumers are tied at 67 percent, below their Asian neighbors Vietnamese and Indonesian consumers, who scored 77 percent and 74 percent, respectively; but above Singaporean and Malaysian consumers, who scored 66 percent and 63 percent, respectively.
The survey said Filipino consumers channel their savings to stocks (25 percent), new clothes (37 percent), home improvements (29 percent), and holidays and vacations (28 percent).
“As consumers move into the middle class, there is an aspiration to build nest eggs, therefore increasing the demand for financial services. At the same time, they also reveal a growing desire to improve the immediate environment, which is the home, and indulge in experiential offerings such as vacations,” said Stuart Jamieson, Nielsen managing director in the Philippines.