“For the first time, since the study has been carried out, Portugal is the most optimistic of all the countries analysed and the one where the biggest improvement was observed over last year,” said Pedro Miguel Silva, associate retail and products partner at Deloitte.
Between 2009 and 2014, there was a decrease of more than 50 percent in estimated Portuguese consumption over the Christmas season, from €620 to €270 per household, but has increased since 2015.
Among respondents, Portugal is the only country that feels that its purchasing power has improved compared to the previous year.
“The balance between positive and negative responses is +2 percent this year, which represents an increase of 25 percentage points compared to 2016,” concluded Deloitte.
The 2017 Christmas Study covered 10 countries and was conducted based on a representative sample of European consumers, with a total of 8,154 respondents, of which 762 were Portuguese, in October 2017.