Positive trends, optimistic consumers

Poland is the sixth biggest export market for Hungarian food products. In the first half of 2016 Hungarian companies sold EUR 181.5 million worth of food in Poland. This performance was 15 percent better than in the first half of 2015 – reported the Agricultural Economics Research Institute (AKI).

There are 39 million consumers in the Polish market and the growth rate of grocery retail was the fourth biggest in Europe in Q2 2016 (in comparison with Q2 2015) – informed the Nielsen GrowthReporter. Like-for-like volume sales were up 1.7 percent and food prices rose 1.1 percent. Online grocery retail is developing well in Poland, last year values sales augmented by 2.4 percent.

As for the consumer confidence index, it reached a 7-year record height of 87 points in Q2 2016 – in the same period the European average was only 79 points. There are three components of the index: 48 percent of Polish consumers were more or less optimistic about their personal financial situation (European average: 41 percent); 38 percent of Poles said the time was right to buy what they wanted or needed (the European average was 33 percent); 3 from 10 people viewed job prospects positively (Europe: 29 percent).

When Polish consumers were asked the question: ‘Did you change your spending habits in comparison with a year ago, and if yes how?’, 52 percent answered with yes (European average: 58 percent). Most Poles cut down on out of home entertainment, but only 35 percent said they had switched to cheaper groceries – in this respect the European average was 49 percent. /