KUALA LUMPUR, May 20 ― Malaysian consumers who believe the county is in “recession” are becoming increasingly frugal and cautious even as counterparts in the Asia Pacific region grow confident about their economies, a survey has shown.

Consumer confidence in Malaysia remained below the “optimistic” mark despite increasing 5 points to 94 in the AC Nielsen’s Consumer Confidence Report for the first quarter this year.

The study also showed that 83 per cent of Malaysian respondents have changed their spending habits to save more since last year.

The shift towards thriftiness was not limited to Malaysia, however, and was also present in countries with the highest consumer confidence namely Thailand (87 per cent), Vietnam (86 per cent), Indonesia (80 per cent), the Philippines (79 per cent) and India (77 per cent).

Malaysians were also the least likely to splurge at the moment, with just 34 per cent saying “it was time to buy” now, below Singapore (39 per cent), Thailand (32 per cent) and Japan (27 per cent).

On the other end of the spectrum was India (65 per cent), Indonesia (56 per cent), Thailand (55 per cent) and Vietnam (54 per cent).

Only 48 per cent of Malaysian polled were confident about their personal finances, above Taiwan (43 per cent) and South Korea (15 per cent), but below Singapore (56 per cent), Australia (57 per cent), Hong Kong (60 per cent) New Zealand (62 per cent), China (62 per cent) and Indonesia (84 per cent).

The pessimism also extended to the workplace as only 46 per cent of Malaysians polled felt confident about job prospects, just slightly higher than Australia (38 per cent) only and trailing behind India (83 per cent), Indonesia (74 per cent), Philippines (73 per cent), Thailand (69 per cent), Vietnam and China (67 per cent), Hong Kong (58 per cent).

Malaysians’ glum views over their personal finances and job prospects, was also matched by their dim outlook of the country’s economy.

Among the 14 Asia-Pacific countries surveyed, Malaysia took the second spot for respondents that felt that their country is in recession at 71 per cent, trailing behind South Korea’s 90 per cent and surpassing regional counterparts including Taiwan (69 per cent), Japan (63 per cent) and Indonesia (60 per cent).

One in four Malaysians felt the country will not come out of recession in the next 12 months, behind only Japan (40 per cent) and Taiwan (35 per cent).

Malaysia was in the higher range of regional countries with 22 per cent believing that the country will be out of recession soon, falling below Thailand (32 per cent), Vietnam and India (28 per cent) and Indonesia (24 per cent).

The online survey released yesterday by AC Nielsen polled consumers in 60 markets during the period February 23 to March 13, where 37 countries showed increased consumer confidence.

Out of the 60 countries surveyed, Malaysia shared the 14th spot with Switzerland and Colombia with a score of 94.

Malaysian consumers were less confident than regional counterparts in Australia (95), Singapore (100), Pakistan and New Zealand (102), China and Hong Kong (106), Vietnam (112), Thailand (114), Philippines (115), Indonesia (123), with India scoring the highest out of all 60 countries polled at 130.

Overall, the global consumer confidence for the first quarter in 2015 went up by one point from the previous quarter to get an index score of 97.

AC Nielsen said yesterday that this reflected a more “upbeat start to the year”, with consumer confidence either going up slightly or remaining stable in all regions except for Latin America ― which slipped two points to 86 and was the lowest scoring region.

Consumer confidence in the Asia-Pacific region is the highest-scoring region at 107 after it went up one point, while North America remained at 106.