The Turkish consumer confidence index fell for the third straight month in a row in February, data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) released on Friday showed, hitting the lowest level in four months.
The consumer confidence index dropped from 71.6 in January to 66.6 points in February.
Median market estimates were that the index would fall to 71.2 points in February. The most recent lowest score was in October 2015, when the index was 62.8 points.
The cumulative monthly decline in the index between November and February hit 13.6 points, Friday’s figures also revealed. The TurkStat data showed that economic outlook trumped all other concerns among Turkish consumers. Friday’s data indicated that there was a particularly sharp fall in the number of people who expected a better general economic outlook within the next 12 months. TurkStat said 5.62 percent fewer consumers expected the general economic outlook to worsen in February when compared to a month ago. The number of people who expected unemployment to increase fell by 10.1 percent compared to the previous month and stood at 66.17 percent in February.
The index of the probability of saving declined to 21.05 in February from 25.09 in the previous month, showing that consumers believe they will be less likely to set money aside. On another negative note, the financial situation expectation index, which pertains to how one perceives the overall financial situation of their household, decreased from 92.17 in January to 89.31 in February, TurkStat said on Friday.