Consumer Confidence Six years of ‘not now’
Last week, BER/FNB released their Consumer Confidence* Index for Q2/2025, with the numbers showing a rebound in Q2 to -10 (after -20 in Q1), which, although an improvement, does mean that the index is still in the red, where it has now been for six years. Much of the ‘rebound’ had more to do with the timing of Q1’s survey, conducted just after the triple whammy of the budget speech postponement, news breaking of a proposed +2.0pp VAT increase (which was eventually scrapped) and a couple of days of hectic load shedding that left just as quickly as they arrived. In addition, the world economy was rocked by US President Trump’s tariff policy announcement. The Q2 survey, conducted in early June, left the index on par with last year’s Q2 result and continues to reflect the relatively pessimistic outlook for the economy and households for the next 12 months: the ‘economic outlook’ subindex was -18 and ‘household financial outlook’ sat at 9 – it is typical for respondents to be more pessimistic about the economic outlook than their household financial outlook. Meanwhile, the subindex for the ‘suitability of the present time to buy durable goods’ is back to -21 (still firmly negative, but better than Q1’s -28). This mild recovery reflects the interest rate cuts over the last few months and moderate inflation, but continues to speak to persistent household pressure and cautious sentiment around discretionary spending.
*The Consumer Confidence Index is measured through a survey of consumers on a scale from +100 to -100, with +100 = extremely confident, 0 = neutral, -100 = extremely unconfident across three sub-indices: economic outlook, household financial outlook and suitability of the present time to buy durable goods.
Comment: If you and your businesses want to know more about how this index looks by household-income band, or you’d like analyses on all the key economic indicators, get your hands on our latest update of the Trade Intelligence South African Economic Report, out tomorrow. Or you can have a look at our free 1-page summary of the numbers here.