Sunday, February 22, 2009

Whither consumer spending?


By Sidney Perez.


For long, the consumer has been the poster-boy of the “India growth story”. The demographic shift in favour of a younger working population and the upward-bound income levels have been cited to support the view that, no matter what goes wrong with the global economy, the Indian consumer will continue to splurge. But this assumption is now being challenged, with the prospect of pay cuts and even layoffs beginning to materialise. Is the slowdown taking a toll on the Indian consumer? What do the sales and production numbers in consumer-driven sectors, from durables to retail to services, say? The data reveal a rather mixed picture.




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