‘Stark drop’ in average household size : Nielsen MD
View(s):Sri Lanka’s most recent census showed a “stark drop” in average household size, to 3.9, from 4.1 in 2001, according to Shaheen Cader, Managing Director of the local unit of international marketing research agency Nielsen. The number of local households was stated as being 5.2 million.
Further, this “stark drop” also signalled the emergence of more households of just three persons, which would likely significantly impact a number of consumer demographics, including spending patterns, etc. Additionally, Mr. Shaheen also commented that it was also common that, in similar circumstances, when household sizes dropped, income levels could increase.
Speaking at a recently held Nielsen client day, which was attended mostly by local marketers, Mr. Cader also highlighted a number of other important patterns to watch. These included, a “nose dive” in female unemployment, to 5.4 per cent in 2012, from 12.3 per cent in 2003. And a shift in the area of live births, with children to mothers aged 30 to 34 becoming the second biggest group, overtaking 19 to 24 year-olds, while 25 to 29 year-olds still remained the largest group overall with 33 per cent of all live births.
Mr. Cader also noted that Nielsen’s online research had determined that Sri Lanka had one million male Facebook users and just 500,000 female. Also, Kumar Sangakara was the celebrity with the most local Facebook fans, at 442,000, followed by Lasith Malinga (281,000), musicians Iraj (218,000) and Bhathiya and Santhush (209,000), and Mahela Jayawardene (203,000).
At the same time, Mr. Cader also commented that another interesting trend was the adoption of washing machines locally. There were just a small number of washing machine units sold in Sri Lanka until recently, and this suddenly went up to 200,000 households buying them in 2012, which showed that washing machine adoption was now close to one in six households (17 per cent),. Nielsen consumer trends data also showed that almost all local households had TVs (96 per cent), 58 per cent had refrigerators, 57 per cent had rice cookers, and 26 per cent had computers.
(JH)
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