When selling products or services in China, one thing it is of great importance for a U.S. company to take into account is the unique market behavior of the particular consumers in China they are targeting. Some U.S. companies operating in China target their products/services towards millennials. Throughout the world, this generation is becoming an increasingly major consumer force.
Millennials can have unique trends when it comes to consumer behavior. An important thing to note though is that what these trends are can differ considerably from country to country. Each country’s millennials have their own unique circumstances that could impact their behavior as consumers.
A recent study indicates that one of the unique things about millennials in China as compared to other millennials is that they have a particularly high likelihood of being a homeowner.
Among the things the study looked at were home ownership levels among millennials in nine countries: China, the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Malaysia, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
The study found that the combined average for millennial home ownership was 40 percent. Most of the nine countries had an ownership rate near this average. The one big exception was China. China’s millennial home ownership level far exceeded the average and was by far the highest among the nine countries. According to the study, 70 percent of millennials in China own their home.
This reflects a trend of high home ownership in China generally.
Whether a person is a homeowner can have major impacts on how they act as a consumer. For one, it could impact what kinds of products and services they are in the market for.
So, the fact that Chinese millennials have a higher likelihood of home ownership than millennials in the U.S. is among the things U.S. businesses may want to take into account when targeting the millennial market in their Chinese operations. This underscores how many unique considerations can be at play when it comes to adjusting one’s business operations to the Chinese market.
Source: Business Insider, “70% of China’s millennials are homeowners,” Katilin Last, May 30, 2017