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Global Consumer Confidence in First Quarter: No Surprises

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The Nielsen Global Survey of Consumer Confidence and Spending Intentions for the first quarter of 2013, shows that there is no unanimity in confidence among people around the world. People who are unhappy are unhappy in countries where most experts would expect them to be unhappy. The same holds true for happier populations. In other words, the study does not tell much.

The report on global consumer confidence shows:

“Economic perceptions signaled positive momentum as global job prospects, personal finances, and spending intentions cautiously edged up in Q1 2013,” said Dr. Venkatesh Bala, chief economist at The Cambridge Group, a part of Nielsen. “Encouraged by positive signs in the U.S. economy and moderately steady performance in China, consumer confidence in developed Asian economies rebounded strongly last quarter, as Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan posted double-digit confidence increases.”

And:

Double-digit consumer confidence declines were reported in Egypt (-20) and Saudi Arabia (-17), compared to Q4 2012. Pakistan declined six index points to a score of 88, and United Arab Emirates dropped five index points to 108, which was the highest index reported in the region.

The likely accuracy about Egypt and Pakistan takes one breath away.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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