The attitudes of German consumers do not portray a uniform picture at the end of 2018. While income expectations are increasing slightly, both propensity to buy and economic expectations have had to suffer losses. Since propensity to save is also decreasing slightly, GfK is predicting an unchanged (compared to December) value of 10.4 points for January 2019.

With the third decrease in a row, economic expectations are continuing their downward trend at the end of 2018. After a fall of 3.3 points, the indicator has slipped to 14.1 points. This is the lowest value since February 2017, when a score of 9.7 points was recorded. Compared to the same time last year, therefore, this score has fallen by more than 30 points.