The Iran war and concerns about rising energy prices are depressing consumer sentiment also the exporters in Germany. “Many companies fear falling demand in important sales markets,” said Klaus Wohlrabe from the Munich Ifo Institute.
The export expectations collected by the institute fell into the red in March, from plus 2.7 to minus 0.9 points. However, the pessimism does not affect all sectors: Car manufacturers are therefore expecting a significant boost. Their export expectations are now at plus 30.7 points. In retail, however, the German trade association expects this For the Easter business, sales were only 2.1 billion euros – that would be a decline of 6.5 percent compared to the previous year.
Concern about income
Stronger than the buying mood is clouded but people’s expectations of their future income and the economy. These results have now been presented by GfK market researchers and the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions (NIM). The pessimism is particularly clear when it comes to income expectations. This indicator fell by 12.6 points to minus 6.3 points. The experts also cite the fear of rising inflation as a result of expensive energy as the reason here.
60 percent of consumers assumed that energy prices would rise as a result of the war Iran remained permanently high, said NIM consumer expert Rolf Bürkl. “React the propensity to purchase and the propensity to save “At the moment there is little focus on the geopolitical events in Iran, but consumers expect that inflation will pick up again due to higher energy prices and that the economic recovery will be slowed again.”
The propensity to buy – i.e. the willingness to make larger purchases – fell only slightly to minus 10.9 points. The propensity to save, which had reached a high since 2008 in February, stabilized at a very high level of 18.5 points in March. For the study, around 2,000 consumer interviews were conducted on behalf of the EU Commission between March 5 and 16, 2026.