World economic activity continues to grow when seen through the lens of the Sales Managers Indexes, in the world's largest economies (China, the USA and India). In particular, the Global Business Confidence Index has recovered from the declining trend seen over the March - September 2024 period. Since October, this Index has reflected a higher level of confidence, which usually translates into increased economic activity in subsequent months. The March data provides reasonable hope that this process is underway.
For most recent decades these three countries have collectively contributed close to 60% of total global growth, and in reality, probably significantly more, as the "rest of the world" in this case includes many countries with less reliable and often inflated data. In any event, if survey results from these three countries collectively are looking reasonably good, as is currently the case, prospects for economic activity in the world as a whole are very likely to be positive.
The Sales Managers' Indexes provide the earliest monthly data on the speed and direction of economic activity in key growth areas of the world.
The SMI’s (Sales Managers’ Indexes) are compiled and analysed by World Economics and are based on survey data collected from a panel of companies stratifying all Industry Classification Board (ICB) sectors which are weighted to reflect their contribution to national Gross Domestic Product.
Key advantages of the SMI's:
Global SMI data is published as diffusion indexes to gauge the speed and direction of economic activity.
Monthly data for 8 years is downloadable in a consistent unadjusted format for the 6 key indexes: