Majority of consumers believe that the next 12 months would not be an ideal time to buy any big-ticket items such as motor vehicles, houses, amongst others.
This is contained in the Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) report for December 2020, recently released by the Statistics Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
According to the report, the overall buying intention index in the next twelve months stood at 29.9 index points, indicating that most consumers do not intend to buy big-ticket items in the next 12 months.
Also, the buying intention indices for consumer durables, motor vehicles and houses, etc were below 50 points, which shows that respondents have no plans to make these purchases in the next twelve months.
Other Key highlights
- The consumers’ overall confidence outlook was pessimistic in Q4 2020 standing at -14.8 index points. Consumers attributed this unfavourable outlook to declining economic conditions, family financial situation and declining family income.
- Most consumers expect that prices of goods and services would rise in the next 12 months, with an index of 43.1 points – largely driven by savings, food & other household needs, Education, Purchase of Appliances/durables, Purchase of Cars/Motor Vehicles, and purchase of houses.
- Consumers generally expect the unemployment rate to rise in the next one year, with unemployment index for the next 12 months remaining positive at 36.9 points in Q4 2020.
- Consumers are expecting the borrowing rate to rise and anticipate the naira to appreciate in the next 12 months, with indices of 12.2 and 3.9 points respectively.
What you should know
- The Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) was conducted during the period of November 16 -25, 2020.
- A random sample size of 2,070 households was chosen, drawn from 207 Enumeration Areas (EAs) across the country, with a response rate of 99.8%.
What this means
Consumers are quite optimistic in their outlook that next quarter and next 12 months look good with opportunities to save some money, rather than spending them to buy big-ticket items, from the expected increase in net household income – an anticipated improvement in Nigeria’s economic conditions.
