EU Consumer Climate at a Nine-year Peak

According to GfK study, the positive mood among European consumers has continued into the first quarter of 2017. At the end of December 2016, the consumer climate for the 28 EU countries had already risen to its highest level since January 2008.

In January 2017, it further climbed by two points to 19.9 points, before settling at a level of 18.9 in March. This is one of the results of the GfK consumer climate study for Europe in the first quarter of 2017.

In terms of the respective economic and income expectations and propensity to buy indicators, significant differences were once more apparent in the individual analyses of all countries surveyed. They are attributable to differing economic developments and the country-specific labor market situation.

The influence of predominant topics at a pan-European level such as Brexit, the strengthening of nationalist parties, the new government in the USA and the war in Syria therefore did not affect the development of the individual indicators equally in all countries.