Thai consumer confidence has declined over the past six months, while globally the scores have held to their 2005 levels, according to research released yesterday by ACNielsen.

Although Thai confidence slipped from 96 to 95 points, consumers in one sense seem more optimistic about the state of their personal finances for the year ahead. They rank No 1 in the world in terms of "people planning to save any leftover cash after paying for essential living expenses", the research report said.

ACNielsen managing director Chantira Luesakul said the strong desire of Thai consumers to "save for a rainy day" may in part be explained by their increasing pessimism about local job prospects, as well as scepticism about whether now is the right time to buy what they need over the next 12 months.

These findings on global consumer confidence and spending habits/intentions were reported from the latest 2006 ACNielsen Global Consumer Confidence and Opinion Survey conducted in late May/early June.

This biannual online survey, the largest of its kind, polled 21,780 Internet users across 40 countries in the Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.

The research report adds that India has topped the global index (with a score of 131 in 2006) for the third consecutive year since the Consumer Confidence Index was established in early 2005. India was followed closely by Norway and Denmark - with scores of 130 and 127, respectively - who rank as the second and third most optimistic markets in the world.

Anything less than 100 indicates a pessimistic view of future prospects, while a score above 100 indicates a positive outlook.

Like the Thais, consumers the world over are cautious and pessimistic about "local job prospects" compared to a year ago.

However, in Thailand, this attitude seems to be even more pronounced with 62 per cent perceiving job prospects to be "not so good" - up from 55 per cent over the previous survey in November 2005.

Asia-Pacific consumers as a whole are the most cautious group in terms of their financial outlook. More than half (52 per cent) are "least comfortable" with the state of their personal finances over the next year, representing a drop of 9 per cent over the last survey.

On the other hand, more than half the Thais (57 per cent) were confident about their personal finances.

 Thailand tops the global ranking with the largest numbers of savers (70 per cent, up 15 per cent over the previous survey).

The Philippines (63 per cent), Singapore and Taiwan also do well with a score of 60 per cent each.

In fact, Asia Pacific as a whole does well on this front with the world's top savers coming from this region: 54 per cent putting their spare cash into savings compared with 37 per cent for North Americans and 29 per cent for Europeans.

Chantira added that economic and political factors influenced Thais' penchant to save for a rainy day. With concerns about economic and political uncertainty, putting spare cash into savings is certainly the safest financial option for these consumers.

More than half the world's consumers as well as Thais consider it "not a good time" to buy things they want over the next 12 months.

Only 40 per cent in Europe and 34 per cent in the Asia Pacific believe that "it is a good time to buy", while the North Americans seem more upbeat with 48 per cent agreeing, despite rising national concerns about personal debt and soaring fuel prices.

Additionally, more consumers claim "not to have spare cash" in this round of the survey over the previous one.

Meanwhile, Asia-Pacific consumers have been consistently indulging themselves on holidays/vacations (37 per cent) as their most preferred spending option. Thailand (58 per cent) topped the Asia-Pacific region and ranked second globally on this front.

Apart from this, consumers in the Asia Pacific are now increasingly spending on out-of-home entertainment (30 per cent) and new clothes (28 per cent) over new technology (24 per cent).

Consumers in the Asia Pacific seem to be more interested in playing the financial markets than any other region, with one in four consumers choosing to invest in stocks or mutual funds.

 In fact, seven of the top 10 countries that will invest in the financial markets hail from the Asia Pacific, with Taiwan (42 per cent), Hong Kong and India (40 per cent each) leading this trend.