MUMBAI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BluFin, the Financial Information and Content Company, today announced the launch of India’s first comprehensive monthly Consumer Confidence Index (CCI). The BluFin Consumer Confidence Index has been designed by BluFin under the guidance of Dr. Sam Thomas, a renowned Professor of Finance at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, USA.
The Index is designed to measure how consumers are feeling about the economy and their ability and desire to spend across India, and includes data collected over 6 months from 4,000 respondents across 18 cities, in partnership with TNS, the world’s largest custom market research company. At 39.9 for the month of March 2012, the Aggregate CCI Index reflects pessimism about the economy among Indian consumers. CCI score of under 50 reflects pessimism and over 50 reflects optimism.
Commenting on the CCI launch, Dr. Sam Thomas, Strategic Advisor to BluFin, said, “Consumer Confidence Indices are important in any economy to assess the pulse rate of the consumer. At BluFin, we have tried to create a world-class product with sufficient Indianization. We look forward to feedback from policy makers, economists, financial investors and others to further sharpen the CCI to become the de facto standard for measuring consumer sentiment in India”.
The BluFin CCI is a key ‘aggregate’ indicator that assesses the sentiments of urban Indian consumers with regard to the economy and spending behaviour. The Aggregate CCI consists of two key component indices; the Present Situation Index and the Future Expectations Index. These in turn comprise of three sub-indices; the Inflation Sentiment Index, the Employment Prospects Index, and the Spending Sentiment Index.
Besides the Aggregate score of 39.9, other highlights of the CCI March 2012 include:
- The Aggregate CCI had its lowest score of 35.8 in December 2011. Since then, there has been a positive trend but consumers remain pessimistic
- Concerns about the future are prominent in the consumer’s mind, as indicated by the CCI’s Future Expectations score of 37.6 in March 2012, lower than the CCI aggregate score of 39.9. In contrast, the Present Situation score of 45.7 was above the Aggregate CCI in March 2012.
- While all three sub-indices mentioned above indicated a Pessimistic Sentiment, the Inflation Sentiment Index, at 23.5 in March 2012 was the biggest drag on overall consumer sentiment.
- Respondents in South India showed a marginally more positive sentiment than those in other regions, however they also remain pessimistic.
Commenting on the results, Rashid Bilimoria, CEO, BluFin, said, “The BluFin CCI captures how the urban Indian consumer feels about the economy and prospects. It is an important index to watch especially for India where consumer spending is a key driver of overall economic growth. With a CCI score of 39.9, the Indian urban consumer is clearly pessimistic. While the CCI and the sub-indices have been trending upward in February and March 2012, the consumer is still very concerned about inflation and future prices.”
While commenting on the launch of BluFin CCI, Neeraj Bhargava, Chairman BluFin and CEO, Zodius Advisors said, “Economic and Financial data in today’s ‘social’ age needs to be current, transparent and simple. BluFin’s CCI and its upcoming products will be available freely on the Internet and on mobile apps and in a visually appealing manner -- truly democratizing financial information.”
The CCI and the sub-indices, can be downloaded from www.blufin.in. CCI apps will be available for the mobile and tablet in visually appealing, user friendly graphical formats and for Internet websites of media companies in the form of widgets leveraging info-graphics to facilitate understanding of the data.
The next BluFin Consumer Confidence Index for India will be announced on 8 May 2012 and subsequently on the second Tuesday of every month.
In addition to the CCI, BluFin will launch in the next few months, a series of macroeconomic indices, financial market indices, investment advisory tools and financial education products that in several countries are standard aids for institutional and retail investors and policy makers.
About BluFin
BluFin is a market-defining Financial Information and Content company, providing timely and relevant information to retail and institutional investors on the Indian economy and financial markets. BluFin is backed by Zodius Advisors (www.zodius.com) and Anthemis Group (www.anthemis.com). For more information, please visit www.blufin.in.
About Zodius Advisors
Zodius Advisors builds businesses in the “new” Digital India. Operational since 2011, Zodius typically develops one company every six months and works intensively with its portfolio company teams to “speed up” and “shape up” for exceptional growth and profitability.
About Anthemis Group
Anthemis Group is a specialist holding company providing vision, strategy, leadership and capital to growth-stage companies with innovative business models at the intersection of financial services, markets and technology.
Important Links:
www.blufin.in
www.tnsglobal.com
www.zodius.com
www.anthemis.com