The world’s fourth most populous country is definitely one to watch, says David Crosbie

Two media reports in the past week have served to underline the increasing importance of Indonesia and its consumers to the global economy.

Firstly, an article in Bloomberg Businessweek highlighted the fact that many economists are calling for Indonesia to either be added to the BRIC group – Brazil, Russia, India and China: the four nations identified by Goldman Sachs in 2001 as likely to be the world’s biggest economies by 2050 – or to replace Russia altogether.

The rationale behind these calls is that in contrast to Russia, whose GDP figures have been lacklustre of late and whose population is ageing rapidly, Indonesia has a booming economy (with year-on-year GDP growth of nearly 6%, according to Bloomberg) and a young and vibrant population.

Secondly, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported, under the headline Why Indonesians are all a-Twitter, that according to a study by ComScore, the country has the highest proportion of Twitter users on the planet, with 20.8% of online Indonesians aged over fifteen posting messages on the microblogging site. Brazil comes second, with an equivalent figure of 20.5%. This suggests not only that Indonesian consumers are increasingly tech-savvy, but also that their ability to spread the word about new products and services is on the up.

Indonesia has been one of the ‘Core 25’ countries in GfK Roper Consulting’s Roper Reports Worldwide research since the study’s inception in 1997, because even before the country’s economic advances during the 2000s it represented a formidable group of consumers. Today, Indonesia has the fourth biggest population globally, and is the largest Muslim democracy in the world.

Our ongoing insights into the attitudes and behaviours of Indonesian consumers point to an increasingly promising environment for marketers. Long trend analysis shows that the confidence of Indonesian consumers overtook that of the global average in 2009, and now stands ten percentage points clear. What’s more, according to GfK Roper Consulting’s Consumer Recession Index, which combines a wide range of indicators to determine the extent to which consumers are affected by prevailing economic conditions, Indonesians were the third-least affected of 25 markets in 2010.

It’s clear that Indonesia will offer increased opportunities in the years to come, but these can only be acted upon with a clear insight into the attitudes and behaviours of its consumers. To find out more about how GfK Roper Consulting can help you to achieve this, please contact us. All that’s left now is to settle on a name for this new group. BIIC has been suggested. Or would anybody like a BICI?

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Tags: Asia, Bric, Business Week, Consumer, Consumer Recession Index, Consumer Trends, David Crosbie, Economy, Gfk Roper Consulting, Gfk Roper Reports® Worldwide, India, Russia, Social Networking, Twitter