German consumer mood to improve in Jan - GfK

By Sylvia Westall

BERLIN, Dec 20 (Reuters) - German consumer morale is likely to improve slightly in January, buoyed by the afterglow of Christmas, but households are still worried by the firm euro and financial market turmoil, a survey showed on Thursday.

The GfK market research group's forward-looking sentiment indicator for January, based on a survey of around 2,000 Germans, rose to 4.5 from an upwardly-revised 4.4 for December, when it fell for the fifth consecutive month in a row.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a reading of 4.0 for January ECON.DE after an originally-reported 4.3 for December.

"Consumer sentiment could pick up during the December Christmas shopping period and perhaps over-compensate in comparison with the previous month," the GfK said in a statement.

Christmas shopping makes up around a fifth of annual retail sales in Germany and the country's HDE retail association is forecasting flat sales in real terms over the period.

A GfK gauge of consumers' expectations for the economy in December fell to 23.6 from 24.1 in November, the group said. The components lag the headline indicator by one month.

A measure of income expectations fell to -1.7 from 0.0 in November and a gauge of willingness to buy rose to -10.7 from -21.8, the GfK said.