Roy Morgan Update December 2, 2025: Social Media Ban, Most Trusted Brands and Consumer Confidence

In this week's Market Research Update, we present the latest data on Social Media Ban, Most Trusted Brands & Consumer Confidence.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly update.

First – the Social Media Ban for Under 16s – Australia is set to introduce a ‘world first’ social media ban for people under 16 – starting next week – and for many, this legislation has been incredibly contentious – for several reasons, but who is it set to impact most heavily?

New data from Roy Morgan shows 624,000 Australian children aged 14 and 15 use at least one social media platform in an average four weeks – effectively 100% of this age cohort. In the nationwide survey of 1,426 Australian teenagers aged 14 and 15 – only one had not used a soon to be banned Social Media service.

There is exceptionally high reach across the major platforms, in an average four weeks 95% use YouTube, 87% use Snapchat, 81% use Facebook and 78% use Instagram the most widely used among 14–15-year-olds.

Significant proportions also use Reddit (70%), TikTok (59%) and X/ Twitter (41%), while Twitch (12%) and Threads (9%) remain more niche platforms.

Last week Roy Morgan released the latest quarterly survey results on Australia’s most trusted and distrusted brands for the year to September 2025 – and for an eighth straight quarter – Bunnings is Australia’s most trusted brand.

Bunnings is followed by ALDI and Kmart second and third place.

The improvers in the latest quarter were led by the big banks with the Commonwealth Bank up two spots to fifth – its highest ever result, Westpac up five places to 14^th, NAB up one spot to 19^th and ING up 2 spots to 20^th.

Electronics retailer JB Hi-Fi has also improved, up two places to be in ninth overall.

The major supermarkets were again Australia’s two most distrusted brands with some familiar brands filling out the top five including telecommunications company Optus in third and social media giant Facebook/Meta in fourth.

However, the big story of the most recent quarter is the continued slide of online retailers and marketplaces.

Temu has entered the Top Five Most Distrusted brands in fifth for the year to September 2025 – and for the single month of September was the most distrusted brand in the country.

Amazon is now the tenth most distrusted brand while online ‘fast fashion’ retailer Shein is now the 11^th most distrusted brand in Australia.

For more detail on the key changes in Australia’s most trusted and distrusted brands – watch the latest in-depth webinar on the results.

Now to our weekly metrics – starting with Consumer Confidence. Even the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales were not enough to keep Australians’ Consumer Confidence from dropping in light of the high official inflation reading last week, and the prospect there will be no more interest rate cuts – and maybe interest rate increases to come.

After consecutive weekly increases leading into the Black Friday sales weekend, the latest weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence dropped 1.6 points to 85.5.

There was a divergence on the sub-index results this week – buying sentiment improved for a third straight week leading into Black Friday – up 4% points this week.

Now 29% (up 2%) said ‘now is a good time to buy major household items’ compared to 31% (down 2%) saying it’s a ‘bad time to buy’ – a net reading of -2% - nevertheless, the highest figure for this indicator for well over three years since March 2022.

However, all other sub-indices fell this week – with falls in confidence about personal financial situations and the Australian economy’s performance dragging the overall index down.

As expected, Inflation expectations are up again – for a second straight week. The weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations increased 0.2% to 5.6% this week

So, Australians are now expecting annual inflation of 5.6% each year over the next two years – the highest level of Inflation Expectations for exactly two years since December 2023.

The high official inflation readings, as well as increasing petrol prices – which were at their highest for eight months in November – are clearly putting pressure on household budgets.

Because the ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations are measured weekly it’s possible to pick up a change in the nation’s psyche very quickly.

You will recall last week, ANZ-Roy Morgan measure of Inflation Expectations increased before the actual inflation results (CPI) were announced.