Hong Kong consumer confidence has plummeted as retail sales decline and employment levels drop.
The territory reflected one of the worst performances in the 17 markets tracked by the MasterCard Index of Consumer Confidence which has a long-established track record of accurate data on confidence levels across the region.
MasterCard described the Hong Kong decline as “a significant deterioration from six months ago”, falling 12.4 points to 32.1. Hong Kong now has the lowest score in the region and its latest decline was second in pace only to Indonesia. All five components declined, with employment (-20.9) contributing most to the drop.
Over June and July, 8746 respondents between 18 and 64 years in 17 Asia Pacific markets were asked to give a six-month outlook on five economic factors – the economy, employment prospects, regular income prospects, the stock market and their quality of life. The Mastercard index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, with zero as the most pessimistic, 100 the most optimistic and 50 as neutral.
Across Asia, consumer confidence is holding steady in nine of the 17 markets. The best performing markets were Taiwan and the Philippines.
Taiwan gained 16.3 to 45.3 points, leaping from among the lowest 17 markets in last year’s second-half survey, where it deteriorated more than 20 points. Taiwan’s reverse was backed by an improvement in all components, the largest coming from heightened expectations in stock-market movements.
After its elections in May, the Philippines improved 12.9 points to place it in “extremely optimistic” territory at 95.2 points, its highest level since the country became involved in the survey in 1995.

Driving growth
“The region’s emerging markets, including China, India, Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines, remain resilient with consumers expressing optimism about economic prospects over the next six months,” says MasterCard Advisors Asia-Pacific senior VP Eric Schneider. “Even as emerging Asia continues to drive the region’s growth, governments and businesses need to ensure stability and strong fundamentals in order to weather future external shocks.”
A key finding of the report is overall consumer confidence being stable, edging up 0.05 points to 59.72 from 59.67 in the second half of last year.
The developing markets of India (97.6), Myanmar (99.8), Philippines (95.2) and Vietnam (94.9) remain “extremely optimistic” in their outlook.
Declines were recorded in seven markets, significantly in Indonesia (-14.7), Hong Kong (-12.4) and Singapore (-10.7). The decreases in Hong Kong, Japan (-8.8) and Singapore moved these markets from neutral into pessimistic territory.