A couple of days ago I reported on the Consumer behaviour in China post COVID-19, from a research done by McKinsey & Company.

Now McKinsey & Company have published a number of other research findings with regards consumer sentiment in a number of countries, which are still in the thick of dealing with the COVID-19 related crisis. I will draw your attention to the consumer sentiment findings in UK, Italy and Germany.

However, before focusing on the mentioned countries , let us compare the pessimism and optimism registered in various countries with regards an economic recovery. It is interesting to see that in China which we can consider being in a post COVID-19 situation and in the US whereby the spread of COVID-19 is still in initial stages, optimism is at the highest levels. Obviously in a country like Italy, with already a weak economic situation before COVID-19 and with the highest amount of registered deaths from COVID-19, the optimism regards an economic recovery is at its lowest.

United Kingdom

As can be seen below the Brits are anticipating a reduction in income, which is being reflected in a reduction in spending

Interesting however to see on which products or services the Brits expect to cut mostly their spending on. As can be seen and also expected, discretionary spending is what gets the largest amounts of expected decreases.

Finally, it is interest to have at how COVID-19 is changing the behaviour of the Brits, with a strng shift towards viewing live news, reading news online, Live TV and Social media

Italy

Here the situation is more pessimistic when compared to the Brits, with half the Italians believing their income will be reduced

The trend of cutting on discretionary spending is also evident in Italy but the amount of reduction in spending is much heavier in Italy then the UK

Here again, the shift towards online news, live news, TV and Social Media is much stronger than in the UK.

Germany

A third of Germans are cutting spending as can be seen below. This is much lower than what experienced in Italy and almost in line with the UK, though a bit lower than the UK. More interestingly in that in contrast with the UK and even more so with Italy, the Germans still expect similar incomes.

On the other hand, Germany is following the trend that the majority of spending cut backs is with regards discretionary spending

As seen in other countries Germans are also switching their behaviour towards live news, online news and social media

We at EMCS (www.emcs.com.mt) have been producing, for a number of years, a detailed Consumer Confidence report based on continuous surveying of consumers in Malta. Feel free to drop me an email on silvan.mifsud@emcs.com.mt to learn more on our Consumer Confidence Index in Malta.