A closely-watched survey shows the outlook of German consumers remains stable despite Europe's economic woes.
The GfK institute's forward-looking consumer climate indicator released today stood at 5.9 points for October, unchanged from September.
The survey, consisting of some 2,000 consumer interviews, shows Germans' willingness to buy in September remained at 33.1.
This is good news for companies counting on domestic spending to help offset a drop in exports to struggling euro zone nations.
But economic expectations remain low - despite rising slightly to -17.2 points from -18.9 -- and income expectations dropped sharply from 31.6 in August to 23.9 in September.
GfK says the income expectation number is still a "good level" but the drop shows consumers have grown more uncertain over their future financial prospects in recent weeks.
