Special Report: Where is Sri Lanka’s consumption distributed?
Sri Lanka’s consumer landscape has evolved across several crisis periods in the recent years, which prompted us to look how consumer dynamics have shifted. Adjacent to gauging consumer demand, we have looked at how consumption has been distributed geographically in the Western Province, within DS divisions.
We built on our previous work in consumer personas as the basis to distinguish different income brackets specifically those that make up the top 60% of SL’s consumption. We looked into consumption distribution trends of this nature because of the historically high levels of consumption that we have seen in Western province. This is also because WP has contributed to the overall GDP substantially. Thus, understanding how this consumption was distributed and if it was spread within and out of Colombo was important.
To do this, we looked at alternate ways to look at consumption, without relying on conventional macroeconomic indicators such as GDP/GDP per capita. This helped us to understand certain nuances that would otherwise not be captured using conventional macroeconomic indicators.
From this we were able to look at how consumption pockets have been spread outside Colombo and what that could mean for the overall consumer story for Sri Lanka. This will particularly important since SL is going through a strong fiscal sector since 2024. That being said, the overall insights given in probability ranges to account for greater planning through the insights we provided whilst also accounting for any margin of error.
The report has been structured in way that take you through the importance of the report before we delve into our insights. Initially we take you through the key takeaways of the report, followed by the context for the report, and go into the actual insights based on the data and proxies we used. Additionally, for further information we have included a technical note to understand how we derive, and certain assumptions.
Disclaimer: This report is only the first phase of many subsequent reports to come through the utilization of this methodology. Thus, it is a work in progress.
For further details, the full report; Sri Lanka Consumer Quarterly – July 2025 provides clear explanations for all the mentioned dynamics. If you are a client who has not had a chance to read through it, please click here. Otherwise, get in touch with us to subscribe to our reports (clientconnect@frontiergroup.info).