Agency Report –
Frankfurt – Private consumption in Germany had a bumpy start to the new year, according to the latest consumer survey by the German market research groups GfK and NIM.
Economic and income expectations, as well as the propensity to buy, suffered losses in January, the institutes reported in the survey published on Wednesday. At the same time, the propensity to save will increase slightly.
For February 2025, the consumer researchers are therefore forecasting a decline in the consumer climate by one point to minus 22.4 points.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, the consumer climate, which has been surveyed monthly since the 1980s, had been comparatively stable at around plus 10 points.
“The consumer climate has suffered another setback and starts gloomy into the new year. The few hopes of a cautious recovery that emerged after the rise in the previous month were dashed,” explains Rolf Bürkl, consumer expert at NIM.
Since the middle of last year, a stagnating trend at best has been recognizable, he said. On the other hand, “in the first half of 2024, the signs were still pointing to recovery,” Bürkl added.
“A sustainable recovery in the consumer climate is currently not in sight, especially as the inflation rate has also risen gain recently.”
The researchers found that this is one of the reasons why households are assessing their own income situation more negatively than in the first half of 2024, but also due to increasing fears about job security.
However, this is also accompanied by a decline in the propensity to buy. In the wake of the weak income prospects, this has reached its lowest level since August last year.
GfK surveys 2,000 consumers every month for the study on behalf of the European Commission. The latest survey was carried out from January 2 to 13.
