United Kingdom: Consumer confidence increases in August
Consumer confidence rose to minus 25.0 in August from July’s minus 30.0. Despite the uptick, the index remained entrenched below the 0-point threshold, pointing to improving—albeit still pessimistic—confidence among consumers.
The reading was driven by improvements in consumers’ views of the general economy, their personal financial situation, and their willingness to make major purchases, and comes amid the cooling of inflation in recent months.
Despite higher consumer confidence in August, our panelists are downbeat on the private consumption outturn in Q3 as a whole, and in 2023 overall private consumption is seen eking out only minor year-on-year growth.