Despite a marginal fall in the level of optimism, Indians remain the world's most confident consumers with a vast majority of them seeing bright prospects ahead on the jobs, personal finance and economy fronts, a new survey says.

According to the survey carried out by international marketing research firm The Nielsen Company, India has topped the bi-annual Global Consumer Confidence Index for the fifth time in a row.

However, the Consumer Confidence Index in India dropped marginally to 135 points in the latest survey for the first half of 2007, compared to 137 points in the 2H-06 survey.

India's score was significantly higher than the global average of 97 points, while consumers in the countries like Korea, Portugal, Hungary, Japan and Taiwan emerged as pessimists.

According to the survey, 93 per cent of consumers surveyed in India felt that their job prospects in the next 12 months were excellent to good.

"Indian consumer confidence is in line with the release of the country's latest GDP figure of 9.4 per cent, the highest growth India has posted in eighteen years," ACNielsen executive director (customised research south east Asia) Sarang Panchal said.

"It is no surprise, therefore, to see 45 per cent of Indian consumers surveyed rating their job prospects in the next 12 months as 'excellent'," he added.

The high confidence is also reflected in the way consumers view the state of their personal finances in the next 12 months, with nine of ten Indians feeling excellent or good about it.

Indians are also quite confident about the future of their economy with 61 per cent feeling that it is an excellent or good time to buy things that they want or need.

As per the survey, Indians are becoming increasingly investment oriented as 53 per cent of those surveyed said they would park their savings in shares or mutual funds. The country ranks third after Hong Kong and China.

A large number of Indians love travelling with 39 per cent voting for it as a means of spending their extra money.

Some of the other things in which they would like to invest include paying off debts or credit card loans (37 per cent), buying new clothes (32 per cent), new technology (29 per cent) and home improvement and decorative items (32 per cent).

Twenty one per cent of Indians surveyed believe they should invest in retirement funds.

However, notwithstanding the high confidence level, 46 per cent Indians were worried about the country's economy despite the boom. Job security (19 per cent), political instability (16 per cent), terrorism (16 per cent) and crime (12 per cent) were other issues of concern.

The Nielsen Online Consumer Confidence and Opinion Survey polled 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets from Europe, Asia Pacific, North America and the Middle East about their job prospects, the state of their finances, and what they do with their spare cash.