New lockdowns and, critically, the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines have and will affect those numbers.

Only around a third had resumed out-of-home activities, compared with 81 percent of consumers in China, 49 percent in France-and just 18 percent in Mexico. “ Survey: US consumer sentiment during the coronavirus crisis,” December 2020. In late September, for example, the US consumers surveyed were more optimistic than before but still cautious, reporting that they planned to buy holiday gifts for fewer people and keep an eye on discretionary spending. How fast and deep confidence will recover is an open question. Jamie Smyth, “Australia’s economy powers out of COVID-19 recession,” Financial Times, December 1, 2020, ft.com. With the pandemic largely contained in that country, household spending fueled a faster-than-expected 3.3 percent growth rate in the third quarter of 2020, and spending on goods and services rose 7.9 percent. Except for international air travel, Chinese consumers have begun to act and spend largely as they did in precrisis times. While manufacturing in China came back first, by September, so had consumer spending.

On Singles Day, November 11, the country’s two largest online retailers racked up record sales. China’s consumers are relieved-and spending accordingly. The first country to be hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was also the first to emerge from it. China was an exception-it has an older population but is conspicuously optimistic.īut China’s profile proves a larger point. McKinsey’s most recent consumer survey, published in late October, found that countries with older demographics, such as France, Italy, and Japan, are less optimistic than are those with younger populations, such as India and Indonesia. That isn’t to say that consumers will act uniformly.

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