With shuttered shops, restaurants and hotels, and at one stage a third of the global population ordered by their governments to stay home, the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is having dramatic and sweeping impacts on economies and consumer markets worldwide. Whilst the plunge in consumer confidence and spending growth can eventually recover, other impacts will be long-lasting as the pandemic can transform both consumer behaviour and the way companies across almost all industries do business.
Food & non-alcoholic beverages will be the only spending category with positive growth in 2020
Global consumer expenditure growth is forecast to fall by 4.3% in real terms year-on-year in 2020 (down from 2.4% real growth in 2019). As COVID-19 is set to bring about a global economic recession, total disposable income is set to decline by 3.7% in real terms in 2020 over a year earlier (down from 2.6% real growth in 2019) due to job losses and depressed investment income gains.
While consumers cut back their spending, food & non-alcoholic beverages will be the only category to record positive spending growth in 2020, since lockdowns and self-isolation prompted them to stockpile. Transport is expected to be particularly hard hit, as people stay home (thereby not using either public or private transport) and cancel all their summer travel plans.
Global Consumer Expenditure Growth by Category: 2019/2020
Lasting changes in consumer behaviour, values, and priorities
Just as the SARS epidemic .......................................................
By: An Hodgson
The article is property of Euromonitor International, a market research provider, and can be read in full here.
