Magazine: Strengthening consumer confidence increases willingness to purchase

In 2012 retail revenue in the grocery, household chemical and cosmetics categories audited by Nielsen increased by 4 percent from the previous year.

The average of the surveyed 21 European countries was 3.6 percent in this respect. While in Hungary the average price in FMCG categories augmented by 6.5 percent, in Europe this increase was 3.6 percent. In Hungary volume sales dropped by 2.5 percent but they were stable in Europe. This negative trend was measured in another 10 European countries and the decline was even bigger in the Czech Republic, Greece and Portugal than in Hungary. According to Jean-Jacques Vandenheede, retail insights director for Nielsen in Europe, the fourth quarter of 2012 was rather slow in FMCG retail all over the continent, actually it was the slowest quarter last year: sales in the 1st quarter of 2012 averaged at 4.7 percent but in the 4th they were down at 2.8 percent in the examined 21 countries. However, in terms of volume sales were down 0.3 percent in the 3rd quarter but only fell by 0.2 percent in the 4th quarter. In 2012 Hungary’s grocery, household chemical and cosmetics value sales were at 126 percent of sales in 2006. In terms of volume sales, in 2012 they represented 93 percent of sales in 2006. On the Hungarian FMCG market certain categories were able to grow, for instance in grocery retail margarine, ice cream, vodka, breakfast cereal/cereal bar and cocoa powder sales rose by two-digit numbers in the February 2012-January 2013 period. Retail’s years-long concentration process stopped, as the value share of stores with a floor space above 400m² was 65 percent in the last twelve months measured – just like a year before; 400m² and smaller stores had a 35-percent share. Nielsen’s consumer confidence index is compiled in every three months. In the last quarter of 2012 Nielsen was happy to report that Hungarian consumers’ confidence index finally wasn’t the lowest among the 58 countries’ measured worldwide, as Greece’s index dropped from 46 to 35 points, making them the last in the ranking. In 2013 consumer confidence has kept strengthening in Hungary. Taking prices and personal financial situation into consideration, in the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2012 8 percent of Hungarians said that the time was right to buy what they would like and needed – in the 1st quarter of 2013 this ratio was up at 11 percent. Consequently, Hungary has made it into the group of 10 countries in the world where the consumer confidence index improved the most in the first quarter of 2013 from the fourth quarter of 2012: growing from 37 to 43 points.