Year-on-year percentage change of CPI Mexico 2018-2024
The Consumer Price Index gauges the price changes in a basket of goods and services representative of Mexican households' consumption. As of August 2024, the CPI had increased 4.99 percentage points compared to the same month of the previous year. Despite some fluctuations, the monthly inflation rate in the country has been experiencing an overall downward trend since August 2022.
Different forms of measuring inflation
The National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Informatics (INEGI) measures price variations considering a total of 299 goods and services that encompass the most representative goods in rural and urban areas of the country. From the second half of June 2018 to May 2024, the accumulated CPI was around 134.09 points, representing price increases of over 34 percent in almost six years. Nonetheless, not all categories of goods and services increased at the same rate, as of June 2024, food and non-alcoholic beverages recorded the highest CPI with 155 points, followed by restaurants and hotels.
Consumer’s perception
Consumers in Mexico had experienced rising prices differently, for example, people older than 55 years old had a higher perceived level of inflation in groceries than any other age group. Groceries were the second category with the highest perceived inflation, only behind restaurants, with almost 70 percent of Mexicans reporting high increases. As well as different perceptions, consumers decide to take varying alternatives to cope with the increases, the most common were paying more attention to prices, changing brands of certain products, or reducing consumption.