German consumer sentiment set to remain stable

Germany’s consumer confidence is set to remain unchanged in August.

This is as the weakness in economic and income expectations were offset by the improvement in the propensity to buy, survey results from the market research group, GfK showed on Wednesday.

The forward-looking consumer sentiment held steady at -0.3 in August.

Economists had forecast the index to improve to +1.0.

Rolf Buerkl, GfK consumer expert, said the phase of falling incidences has come to an end and the number of infections was rising again.

In addition, the dynamism of vaccination has lately decreased significantly in spite of the availability of sufficient vaccines, Buerkl added.

This is currently preventing a further significant rise in consumer sentiment.

Among components of consumer confidence, both economic and income expectations recorded moderate losses in July after strong increase in June, while the propensity to buy increased again slightly.

The economic expectations index had dropped by 3.8 points to 54.6 in July, from a 10-year high.

Consumers expect the German economy to continue growing.

Private consumption would increasingly contribute to the positive development, GfK noted.

The income expectations indicator also fell by 5.1 points to 29 in July.

Rising consumer price inflation weighed on income outlook of consumers.

In contrast to economic and income expectations, the propensity to buy increased slightly by 1.4 points, to 14.8 in July.

The survey was conducted between July 1 and July 12.

The results were excerpt from the study “GfK Consumer Climate MAXX’’ and were based on around 2,000 consumer interviews carried out on behalf of the EU Commission.