Consumer confidence in urban India improved modestly in July, helped mainly by better assessment of the employment situation and inflation, data from a survey by BluFin showed Tuesday.
The BluFn consumer confidence index, designed to assess the pulse of urban Indian consumers with regard to the economy and spending behavior, increased modestly to 41.1 in July from 40.3 in June, indicating that consumers are less downbeat. A score between 25-50 indicates that consumers are slightly pessimistic
Among components, the present situations indicator, which recorded a 0.3 point month-on-month rise, showed that consumers are more comfortable about the present than they were last month. The future expectations indicator improved slightly during the month.
The sub-indicator of consumers' views on spending improved slightly in July, while the measure of households' views of inflation rose to a six-month high of 26.3, but remained in the pessimistic range. At the same time, the employment sentiment index showed some signs of strengthening compared to last month, data showed.
"After what seemed like a bottoming-out in December 2011 the BluFin Consumer Confidence Index had been rising steadily until June 2012 when there was a marginal decline," BluFin CEO Rashid Bilimoria said. "The good news is that the July 2012 CCI has shown a slight improvement thereby averting the fear of a downward trend."
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