Confidence Stabilising but Remains ‘Weak’ After Second Consecutive Increase

Australian consumers are feeling slightly more optimistic about purchase intentions and behaviour, with consumer confidence levels increasing for the second week in a row.

This week, confidence levels increased by 0.6 points, now sitting at 82.4. This comes after a minor increase of 0.2 points last week.

Despite these minor increases, confidence levels remain 10.2 points below the 2022 weekly average of 92.6. Moreover, these results are significantly lower than 2021 levels (18.3 points), when confidence was 100.7.

These figures indicate a small uplift in personal financial; conditions, with more households planning to increase their household spend.

“There was another small improvement in consumer confidence of 0.7 percent last week, after the 0.2 percent increase the week before,” explained David Plank, the ANZ Head of Australian Economics.

This week, one quarter (25 percent) of households said that now is a good time to buy major household items, increasing by two percentage points from last week. In contrast, 46 percent say that now is a bad time to buy major household items – a figure that has dropped two percentage points.

“Increases in the expected ‘financial situation compared to a year ago’ and whether it is a ‘good time to buy a major household item’ were the main drivers of sentiment,” Plank continued. “Confidence, however, remained very weak and at levels last seen during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Household inflation expectations rose by 0.2ppt to 6.0 percent. Headlines about another surge in actual inflation when the Q2 CPI is published will likely place some downward pressure on sentiment this week.”

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