Affluent consumers in Manila continued to spend despite the recession in the past year with Manila elites preferring to buy well-known brands compared to other Asia Pacific markets, survey said.

Synovate, a leading global market intelligence company, recently released its 2009 PAX survey findings, revealing that average monthly billing on credit cards increased from $549 (Q2 2008) to $666 (Q2 2009) among Manila’s affluent sector.

Manila also saw the highest jump in the percentage of elites preferring to buy well-known brands compared to other Asia Pacific markets, from 39.6% last year to 48.4% this year, the survey said.

Now on its 13th year, Synovate PAX is the region’s most comprehensive study of elite adults, tracking media and digital consumption, prosperity, and influence across 11 markets: Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan and Australia.
The survey is conducted year-round, and Synovate spoke with 1,670 affluent residents in Manila to get the 2009 results.

Synovate said that the power of the rich is strongly felt in many categories.
An indication of the power of the rich, almost one quarter (23.9%) of Manila’s affluent have gone on one or more leisure trips in the past 12 months, compared to only 2% of the general population.

Over 69.1% of affluent consumers in Manila own a mobile phone with Internet access and camera functions, which is 37.1% more than the general population.

Similarly for digital video cameras (63% of affluent consumers vs.28% of the general population), private cars (62.1% vs.12%), laptops (47.9% vs. 12%), SLR digital still cameras (28.2% vs. 10%), and flat screen TVs (38.2% vs. 18%).