MAM
Consumer confidence further rises for urban Indians in Feb 2024: LSEG-Ipsos PCSI India 2024
Mumbai: The LSEG-Ipsos monthly primary consumer sentiment index (PCSI) consumer confidence has further improved in February 2024, over January 2024, according to the LSEG-Ipsos primary consumer sentiment index (PCSI). Overall, there was a 2.9 percentage points increase in February 2024, over the previous month, as India continues to show resilience despite the stressed global macro forces, and its score was 69.4 (highest globally).
The PCSI is driven by the aggregation of the four weighted sub-indices and the report showed a positive uptick across all the four sub-indices: the PCSI current personal financial conditions (“Current Conditions”) Sub-Index was up 4.2 percentage points; the PCSI investment climate (“Investment”) sub-index moved up 4.2 percentage points; the PCSI economic expectations (“Expectations”) sub-index was up 1.7 percentage points and the PCSI employment confidence (“Jobs”) sub-index increased 2.5 percentage points.
How did the global markets stack up?
Global markets provided interesting trends – some markets witnessed an uptick in the sentiment index and some markets witnessed a downward slide in consumer sentiment.
The Global Consumer Confidence Index is the average of all surveyed countries’ Overall or “National” indices. This month’s installment is based on a monthly survey of more than 21,000 adults under the age of 75 from 29 countries conducted on Ipsos’ Global Advisor online platform. This survey was fielded between 26 January and 9 February 2024.
Consumer sentiment in 29 countries
Among the 29 countries, India (69.4) holds the highest National Index score this month. Indonesia (65.2) and Thailand (60.4) are the other countries with a National Index score of 60 or higher.
“We continue to witness stable conditions in terms of the economy, personal finances, as consumers are less stressed about running their households and daily spends, and are also buoyant about discretionary spends, for investments, savings and buying big ticket items. Interestingly, sentiment around jobs has also improved as some companies are hiring in the new fiscal. Our survey captures the pulse of the consumer and gauges how consumer sentiment moves from month to month, as it has ramifications for marketers. In a depressed macro environment, it would be natural for consumers to cutback, and it resets consumer priorities. But in the reverse scenario (which was seen in Feb 2024), consumers are willing to splurge and generally feel good about the economy and the job market. Also, the interim Budget had no big surprises in terms of direct and indirect taxes – govt did not burden the consumers more. Food inflation has also been under control,” said Ipsos India CEO Amit Adarkar.
Brands
Google nears Nvidia in race for world’s most valuable company
Market cap gap narrows as Google hits $4.65 trillion, Nvidia at $4.86 trillion.
MUMBAI: In the AI gold rush, even the giants are sprinting and Google is suddenly gaining ground. Google is rapidly closing in on Nvidia in the race to become the world’s most valuable publicly listed company, with the gap between the two narrowing sharply amid diverging stock momentum. The tech giant’s market capitalisation has surged to around $4.65 trillion, following a more than 140 per cent rise in its share price over the past year.
That rally has added over $2.6 trillion in value in just 12 months, including nearly $900 billion since January alone. Its stock recently hovered at $381.80, slipping marginally by 0.04 per cent, but still reflecting strong upward momentum.
Nvidia, meanwhile, continues to hold the top spot with a valuation of approximately $4.86 trillion. The chipmaker crossed the $5 trillion milestone in October last year and peaked at $5.27 trillion on 27 April. However, its shares have largely plateaued over the past six months, rising just 0.2 per cent recently to $199.99.
The contrast in trajectories is striking. While Nvidia has seen relatively flat movement, Google has gained over 36 per cent in the same six-month period. Barron’s estimates suggest that if current trends hold, the valuation gap could shrink to as little as $190 million by the time Nvidia reports its first-quarter earnings on 20 May.
Daily momentum paints a similar picture. Nvidia recorded average daily gains of about 0.66 per cent last month, compared to Google’s stronger 1.42 per cent, an edge that could prove decisive in the short term.
Driving Google’s resurgence is its aggressive push into artificial intelligence across its ecosystem, from search and YouTube to cloud computing. The company has already invested $144 billion in capital expenditure over the past two years and plans to deploy a further $490 billion over the next two.
Its cloud division is also gathering pace. Google Cloud reported an order backlog of nearly $220 billion in the latest quarter, with total backlog touching a record $462 billion, around half of which is expected to be realised within two years. The company’s entry into chip sales is also beginning to factor into its growth narrative.
The last time Google briefly topped the S&P 500 by market value was in February 2016, when it edged past Apple for just two days. This time, the stakes and the numbers are far higher.
At the heart of the contest lies a single force: artificial intelligence. As both companies pour billions into infrastructure, chips and platforms, the leaderboard is no longer just about size, it is about who can scale the future faster.
