Varying purchasing power in Europe

€ 8.62 trillion: this is the huge sum that was available to European consumers in 2013 for their total expenditure and saving. It equates to an average purchasing power of € 12 980 per person in the 42 countries included in the study. But considerable differences in the amount available to private consumers for their consumer spending continue to exist in the 42 countries under review in GfK Geo Marketing’s latest study “GfK Purchasing Power Europe 2013/2014”. Liechtenstein remains at the top of the rankings with a per-capita purchasing power of € 58 844, followed by Switzerland with € 36 352 and Norway in third position with € 31 707 per capita. Germany comes eighth once again in the list with a per-capita purchasing power of € 20 621. Moldova comes bottom with only around € 1 284 per person, less than a tenth of the arithmetic European average as represented by Spain with roughly € 12 370 per capita. People must finance all their outgoings on food, accommodation and services from this general purchasing power as well as their other purchases. Although inhabitants of the countries in Europe with the highest purchasing power must spend a large portion of their income on rent and generally dearer living costs, they still have substantially more left over for non-essential purchases than consumers in countries with low purchasing power. The Europe-wide per-capita growth compared with last year (revised) is 0.39 per cent and thus below the inflation rate of 1.5 per cent determined by the ECB for 2013.

The northern European countries form a strong block in the study rankings with regard to purchasing power. The Norwegians are ranked third in Europe, and their Nordic neighbours Sweden (fifth), Denmark (seventh) and Finland (tenth) also perform well. Apart from Iceland (ranked 13th), all of them feature in the top ten countries in Europe as regards per-capita purchasing power. The Norwegians have roughly € 10 000 more at their disposal than the Swedes with € 21 640 per capita. When it comes to potential total market volume, however, Norway has to defer to Sweden. The approximately 9.5 million Swedes have an overall purchasing power of € 206 bn, while the 5 million or so Norwegians “only” manage € 160 bn in spite of their per-capita purchasing power being nearly 50 per cent higher.