Credit Suisse recently published its fifth annual emerging markets consumer survey.

“Saudi Arabian consumer remains No. 5 in our consumer confidence scorecard, though we note this survey was conducted at the time of the fourth quarter drop in the oil price, with the full effects still likely to impact consumers residing in an economy whose fate is intrinsically tied to the commodity,” Credit Suisse said in a report.

“This mid-table ranking is the result of a set of mixed responses from Saudi Arabian consumers, reflective of the wider socioeconomic imbalances present in a population with around 30 percent immigrants,” said the press release.

“In this year’s survey, we see a continuation of the trend where the highest income earners are most optimistic about the state of their personal finances,” it added.

“This group has been a net 15 percent – 20 percent more optimistic than the lowest income earners for three consecutive surveys going back to the 2012 survey data,” Credit Suisse said.

“Interestingly, we see a slight jump in the expectations of the lowest earners in society, with a net 24 percent of those earning less than SR5,000 expecting their personal finances to improve over a six-month period,” it said.

This can arguably be attributed to the Ministry of Labor’s initiative from early 2014 to raise the minimum wage, said the press release.

“Market penetration in Saudi Arabia across the board is once again the highest in our survey, with above 90 percent penetration in items such as computers, cars and smartphones. In fact, all 1,583 respondents surveyed in Saudi Arabia confirmed that they own a mobile phone,” it added.

“High penetration rates such as these lead us to believe that the market opportunity now lies in the trading up of goods. This can be observed by the continued strong momentum in smartphone penetration, which has risen from 68 percent in our 2012 survey to 96 percent this year,” the report said.

The Credit Suisse survey is a detailed study profiling consumer sentiment and its drivers across the emerging world.

The study provides a timely insight regarding consumer sentiment and future consumption patterns at a time when emerging economies are under a spotlight of concern with growth rates slowing and the prevailing commodity price and foreign exchange volatility posing new challenges.

To undertake the project, Credit Suisse has again partnered with global market research firm Nielsen to conduct nearly 16,000 face-to-face interviews with consumers across nine economies.

These include: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey.

The research is unique in benchmarking consumer behavior across these countries in a consistent and detailed manner; posing around 100 questions to help establish a detailed profile of consumers’ spending habits, future intentions, and the factors that influence them.

Stefano Natella, global co-head securities and analytics research at Credit Suisse, said: “Our survey provides a unique and detailed analysis of consumer sentiment in the emerging world. While many are actively scrutinizing the macro outlook for emerging markets amidst the current volatility, the granular bottom-up analysis in our survey highlights how far from uniform consumer sentiment is. Differentiation not generalization is key for both companies and investors. The analysis delivered in this report and its related proprietary database underlines the ambition of the Credit Suisse Research Institute to provide our clients unique insights to assist their investment and corporate strategies.”

Giles Keating, Credit Suisse’s global head of research for private banking and wealth management, said: “The survey shows the contrasting impact of the oil price collapse on Emerging Markets. Consumer sentiment in Russia and key Latin American economies is under pressure, in contrast to India where the consumer looks robust, helped by reforms. Overall, structural investment opportunities in these economies have not disappeared, but nor have their vulnerabilities.”

The breadth of the survey question allows Credit Suisse to gauge consumer sentiment across our nine surveyed countries by looking in turn at their medium term expectations of personal finances, expectations of inflation, household income trends alongside their immediate spending intentions.

India tops the Credit Suisse Emerging Consumer Scorecard 2015, moving up from fourth in last year’s scorecard.

India was rewarded for its consistent performance; being the only country to score in the top three for each of the key metrics mentioned above.

China falls from first in last year’s Scorecard to fifth this time round and while it tends to dominate the debate surrounding EM, Credit Suisse analysts would note that, although the gloss may have come off this story, it remains far from the greatest source of consumer vulnerability in emerging markets. That lies in Russia and South Africa.

The report analyzes which of these economies and consumers are most exposed to the current commodity and currency volatility. India, Turkey and China are less directly exposed versus Russia, Latin America and South Africa.