India’s Consumer Confidence Stayed Among the World’s Strongest at Year-End 2025

India ended 2025 near the top of the global consumer confidence table. In Ipsos’ December 2025 consumer confidence rankings across 30 countries, India scored 59.3, second only to Indonesia at 63.4. The global averages were notably lower at 49.4 for the full 30-country set and 46.9 for the legacy 20-country set.

That gap is the point. India isn’t just reading as confident in absolute terms. It’s reading as confident relative to a world where the median household mood is far more restrained. And in practice, relative confidence shapes relative demand. It influences whether discretionary categories keep cycling, whether services spend holds, and whether households feel comfortable committing to longer-ticket purchases or multi-month EMIs.

The Ipsos ranking also shows how unusual India’s position is relative to most large developed markets. Several European countries and Japan sit near the bottom of the December 2025 table, while India remains close to the top. This is not a small difference. It reflects a clear divergence in consumer mood across regions at this point in the cycle.

That divergence also helps explain why global narratives can misprice India. If your default mental model is built on US and Europe sentiment, India’s consumer can look “irrationally strong.” But it’s often just a different mix of fundamentals, demographics, and recent lived experience. In markets where confidence is low, consumers spend defensively and save “just in case.” In markets where confidence is high, they’re more willing to convert income into consumption even if they remain price-sensitive.

The caution signal comes from the internal breakdown. Expectations fell 5.6 points and the jobs component fell 6.2 points, while investment improved slightly by 0.6 points and current conditions slipped marginally by 0.4 points. In plain terms, overall sentiment stayed high, but confidence about the near-term outlook softened sharply.

Those two declines are the ones to respect. “Jobs” and “expectations” are where uncertainty enters first because they’re about what households think is coming, not what they already survived. When those soften, businesses often feel it as slower conversion, higher promotional intensity, and more trade-offs inside the same basket. The category doesn’t die, but the mix shifts. Premium slows, mid and value hold, and consumers become more willing to switch brands if the perceived risk rises.

A fall of this magnitude does not mean consumer demand collapses, but it often shows up as more selective spending behaviour. Households can remain broadly optimistic while becoming more cautious on discretionary upgrades, larger commitments, and anything that feels non-essential.

You can think of this as optimism with a guardrail. People aren’t pessimistic, but they’re not carefree either. The near-term caution usually shows up first in postponable purchases: electronics upgrades, furniture refreshes, discretionary travel upgrades, and big-ticket lifestyle commitments. It can also show up as households choosing experiences that feel “worth it now” while deferring purchases that feel like long-run obligations.

Ipsos’ global decomposition helps interpret why this split is meaningful. Across the world, people tend to score jobs and expectations higher than current conditions and investment climate. In the legacy 20-country set for December 2025, the overall index is 46.9, with current conditions at 36.6 and investment at 38.9, while expectations are 54.8 and jobs are 58.6. The same pattern holds in the all-30 set, where the overall index is 49.4 and jobs and expectations remain well above current and investment.

In other words, the “strong legs” wobbling is more informative than the headline index easing. It’s also why this doesn’t read like a simple demand story. It reads like a confidence rotation story: the consumer remains upbeat about the broader environment, but becomes more skeptical about the next step. That is exactly the kind of setup where consumption holds up, but surprises show up in pockets.

There are also important interpretation limits. Ipsos runs this survey online through Ipsos Global Advisor, and results are first reported monthly by LSEG as the PCSI. The global averages are simple country averages, not weighted by population size. And in several markets, the sample reflects a more connected segment of the population, skewing urban and more affluent. Ipsos notes that India’s sample represents a large subset of the urban population across SEC classes and tier 1–3 towns.

These caveats don’t weaken the signal. They tell you what the signal is best used for. This is most useful as a pulse on the urban, more connected consumer, which is exactly the segment that drives a large share of discretionary services and branded consumption. If you’re mapping this into real-world behavior, it should inform expectations about mix, pricing power, and the speed at which discretionary demand converts, rather than being treated as a precise measure of total household spending across the entire country.

Taken together, the December 2025 read offers a clean two-part conclusion. India’s consumer confidence remains structurally strong in global comparison, ranking second among 30 markets. At the same time, the forward-looking components in the month’s PCSI breakdown softened materially, especially jobs and expectations. That combination points to a consumer economy that still looks resilient, but increasingly selective about the near-term outlook going into 2026.

So the right question for 2026 isn’t “is the India consumer strong?” It’s “where does selectivity show up first?” If jobs and expectations stabilize, December reads like a temporary wobble. If they keep sliding, you’d expect more visible effects in discretionary demand, faster trade-down, and a more promotional retail environment. Either way, the December print does something useful: it forces you to stop treating confidence as one number and start reading it like a balance sheet with line items that move for different reasons.

Research Analyst

Simran Mehla

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How did India rank globally in December 2025?

A: India ranked second out of 30 countries, scoring 59.3, behind Indonesia at 63.4.

Q: What were the global averages in the Ipsos table?

A: 49.4 for the full 30-country set and 46.9 for the legacy 20-country set.

Q: What changed month-on-month inside India’s PCSI reading?

A: The national index eased 1.7 points, with expectations down 5.6 and jobs down 6.2, while investment rose 0.6 and current conditions slipped 0.4.

Q: Why do “jobs” and “expectations” matter more than the headline index?

A: They tend to move first when consumer cycles turn, so weakness there often signals rising caution even if overall confidence remains high.

Q: Does a drop in expectations and jobs mean demand will fall sharply?

A: Not necessarily. It more often shows up first as selective spending: delayed upgrades, trade-down behavior, and higher sensitivity to deals.

Sources

Ipsos