SEC Classification (India)

The SEC Classification (also called the Socio-Economic Classification) is a classification of households used by surveyors, market researchers, media and marketing companies in India to categorize consumer behavior. Originally developed by IMRB International as a way of understanding market segments, and consumer behavior it was standardized and adopted by the Market Research Society of India in the mid-1980s as a measure of socio-economic class and is now commonly used as a market segmentation tool in India.

The SEC Classification consists of two grids-

• The Urban SEC Grid, which uses Education levels and Occupational criteria of the Chief Wage Earner (CWE) of a household as measures to determine socio-economic classification, and segments urban India into 7 groups (A1 to E2) and
• The Rural SEC Grid, which uses Education and Type of House (pucca, semi-pucca, and katcha) as measures of socio-economic class, and segments rural India into 4 groups (R1,R2,R3,R4)

These grids are used to determine the consumption preferences, and purchasing power of households, and are common tools used by social and business researchers working in India. The SEC grid does not use family income levels as a measure as this data is hard to collect and it has been demonstrated that education levels and occupation criteria in India are better determinants of consumer preference. The methodology used in these tools differs from the Household Potential Index, which measures consumption intensity.

Urban SEC Grid

It divides the population into 3 classes:

• Upper most segment of the consuming class-A1,A2 and B1
• Middle segment- B2 and C
• The lower most segment—D, E1, and E2.

References

• http://readbetweentheps.blogspot.com/2005/09/socio-economic-classification-are-we.html
• http://www.mrsi.in/whatismrsi.html