Kiwi consumer confidence jumps ahead of Christmas

Tuesday, 17 December 2019

Consumer confidence has jumped, completely reversing a decline over the past year and putting confidence back at 'average' levels, according to a Westpac survey.

Its Westpac McDermott Miller Consumer Confidence Index rose 6.8 points in December, when compared to the same survey in September, taking confidence to a level of 109.9 points.

A figure over 100 means there are more optimists than pessimists.

Westpac chief economist Dominick Stephens said an increasing number of people expected they would be better off financially over the coming years.

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The jump in consumer confidence follows a big bounce in consumer spending in November that was reported by Statistics NZ on Wednesday.

Bank card spending rose a seasonally-adjusted 2.6 per cent during the month, which was the largest rise in almost three years and followed drops in three of the previous six months.

Statistics NZ spokeswoman Sue Chapman said that figure would not have been impacted by shoppers bringing forward Christmas shopping ahead of the 'Amazon tax' GST change on overseas internet shopping that kicked-in on December 1.

That is because it only measured sales reported by New Zealand merchants.

Business confidence has also picked up since hitting a 10-year low in September, according to two surveys by ANZ, with the bank reporting a 'broad and consistent' improvement in confidence in November.

Stephens said the Westpac confidence survey boded well for the Christmas shopping season.

'The number of households who think now is a good time to make a major purchase jumped higher in December and the number who have been ramping up their spending on entertainment activities remains at firm levels.'

Westpac's survey was based on 1557 interviews conducted during the first 10 days of December.