China's Top Priority For Luxury Consumption

China's luxury share accounts for 28% of the world's share.

By the World Luxury Association (micro-blog) and

According to the latest ten year official report released by the World Luxury Association, as of the end of December 2011, the total consumption of China's luxury goods market has reached US $12 billion 600 million (excluding private aircraft, yachts and luxury cars), occupying 28% of the global share. China has become the largest luxury consumer country in the world.

Ten years after China's entry into WTO, the development of luxury consumer market is huge, and the expansion of luxury enterprises in China is attracting worldwide attention.

With the current appreciation of the renminbi and the depreciation of the euro, the purchasing power of Chinese consumers in the international market has increased.

The World Luxury Association predicts that from the start of Christmas to the 2012 Spring Festival in China, the total consumption of Chinese luxury goods abroad is expected to reach US $5 billion 700 million, a record high. The Chinese will consume huge quantities of foreign power to make China the world's most purchasing luxury consumer country.

In the past ten years since China's entry into the WTO, the world has been luxurious.

The "Chinese characteristics" of luxury consumption

When the whole society is gradually entering the stage of prosperity and prosperity, when the wealth of society is not merely satisfied with survival, the luxury lifestyle and the popularity of luxury goods are almost inevitable.

But luxury consumption in China is one of the reasons why many people worry that luxury consumption is suffering from "Chinese characteristics".

First of all, the phenomenon of "getting together" in luxury consumption in China.

There are generally six categories of luxury goods in the world.

First, all kinds of expensive works of art in the cultural and art market; second, luxury goods belonging to the means of pportation, such as automobiles, sailing ships, etc.; third, luxury goods belonging to personal equipment mainly refer to high fashion and clothing, perfume, leather bags and watches; fourth, leisure travel, such as luxury cruise, cruise and high grade hotels; fifth, luxuries in living, such as all kinds of expensive bedroom accessories, sixth, luxurious food, such as expensive liquor, condiments, etc.

For Chinese people, most of the luxury goods are concentrated on personal necessities such as clothing, perfume, watches, etc. in Europe and America, housing, cars and family travel are the luxury that we all aspire to.

For other types of luxury goods consumption, China is still in its infancy.

Secondly, China's luxury consumption presents a characteristic of "not rich and extravagant".

The average level of luxury consumption in the world is to buy around 4% of its wealth. In China, it is common to achieve "dream" by 40% or more. Even these groups constitute an important part of supporting luxury consumption.

This group realized its dream of purchasing luxury goods through efforts to save money.

They often spend on luxury discounts, and are keen to buy some top brand accessories such as ties, leather shoes, leather bags, and so on, implying that they are also part of the top consumer class.

Thirdly, luxury consumption in China shows a "younger" trend.

Finally, China's luxury consumption also shows a tendency of "gift".

Luxury goods can satisfy people's pursuit of quality of life, and even reflect their personal status and status.

But in China, the phenomenon of the separation of people who buy luxury goods and those who use luxury goods has become a peculiar phenomenon, which has made luxury corruption a phenomenon that can not be ignored in the wave of luxury consumption.

The New York Times article points out that the total amount of luxuries purchased by bribing officials accounts for almost half of the total consumption of luxury goods.

Western luxury goods companies are also aware of this. Thierry Gal, President of Dunhill (micro-blog) China, said: "Dunhill has always been a favorite brand of Chinese businessmen and government officials."

As early as 2004, when German Stephen brought 90 pairs of LOTOS glasses to Beijing Wangfujing to try to launch sales in China, he insisted that government officials would be a huge potential market in the Chinese market.

Luxury heat causes insufficient investment in real economy

The wealth of the first generation should have reused wealth for the purpose of "getting rich before taking advantage of it".

A report from Hurun's "2009 richest consumer price index" shows that 825 thousand of China's high-end luxury goods consumers are above tens of millions of assets, and 51 thousand of them are worth hundreds of millions.

Another survey report showed that the number of wealthy people with more than 1 billion yuan in their personal wealth increased from 24 in 2000 to 1363 in 2010, with an average annual increase of 50%.

The emergence of Chinese luxury fever is based on the serious polarization between the rich and the poor.

At present, the main force of China's luxury consumption is mostly the rich and well-to-do class, which is rich in spring breeze through the policy of reform and opening up.

This group should have played the role of "getting rich before taking advantage of the rich", investing wealth in the real economy, expanding reproduction and creating employment opportunities, but some people chose to spend their wealth on luxuries.

The new rich tend to regard luxury goods as a status symbol, almost blindly buying luxury goods.

The Economist magazine once reported that "the Japanese have been considered the most blind consumer group, and now the Chinese people's Congress has a tendency to take the place of it."

They accept well-known brands that are not very well understood and consume them with their own understanding.

But the rich are wasting their wealth on luxury goods, which is not conducive to China's real economy.

When the global luxury market was hit by the economic crisis, China's luxury market was playing a "savior" role. However, China's own real economy was plunged into cold winter because of lack of investment, and no one "saved".

In his speech, economist Lang Xianping emphasized a set of data: when the economic crisis began in 2009, China's imports fell by 43%, of which 40% of imports of industrial equipment fell, indicating that many manufacturing enterprises had withdrawn from the market.

After the economic crisis, the government has tightened money in order to suppress inflation caused by excessive currency, and private enterprises have encountered unprecedented financial strain.

The purchase of luxuries is not conducive to the circulation and appreciation of wealth. As Lang Xianping said, "you never want to sell luxuries again, because there is basically no two tier market for high-end goods.

So these funds will always be trapped and can no longer flow back to the real economy.

How should the value of the wealth elite be reflected?

We have no idea of how China's wealth elites feel, but we are sure that the European and American manufacturers of luxury goods and design are sure to be happy.

In the past 20 years when luxury goods have entered China, the owners of these luxury stores have made it clear that those who enter the shop may not be able to spell their own brand names, but they can definitely buy any product in the store.

High prices can not only discourage many Chinese who do not know the connotation of brand, but will make him crave more for him.

For today's upper class society in China, luxury goods play an indissoluble role in complex and dense social networks.

Also today, another news about luxury goods has attracted wide attention: according to the "2012 China's millions of billionaire brand trend reports" released by the Hurun Research Institute, Moutai has entered the ranks of the ten largest and most valuable luxury brands of 2012 Hurun, ranking fourth in the value of $12 billion, exceeding Mercedes Benz (micro-blog) and Chanel (micro-blog).

In recent years, the price of Moutai has skyrocketed several times. The reason behind it has been laughed out by the Secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee: "Moutai is so expensive. If it is not for public consumption, it will never reach that price."

In China's fiscal budgets at all levels, administrative expenditure has been stubbornly occupying the leading position.

And how much of the public money actually contributed to Moutai distillery, I am afraid no one can give an accurate figure.

But it is certain that Moutai has become an indispensable part of the wine table, whether it is public spending or social banquets.

Similarly, luxury goods such as Lafite, LV, Burberry (micro-blog) and GUCCI (micro-blog) have also become the medium for the coitus of Chinese wealth elites and political elites. With the help of luxury goods, the chain of power rent-seeking has been built up, which is no secret.

Of course, the impetus to boost global luxury consumption in China is diverse.

In addition to the huge consumption factors in the course of public banquet and power rent seeking, the wealth elites who have risen rapidly in the past thirty years in China are always in a lost situation at the level of spiritual belief, and they can only rush to luxury goods and expense themselves.

In many circles of wealth elites, representing the social status and status and constructing the inner self identification function are often undertaken by an Hermes bag or a Porsche sports car.

Without the escort of luxury goods, individuals will be ruthlessly squeezed out of the circle of wealth circles.

However, for many rich people in China today, they do not really understand the meaning of wealth.

They are often extremely insecure and can only rely on currying favor with political leaders and madly occupying luxuries to fill the vacancy.

They do not understand that, as a social person, huge wealth does not fully show the value of a person, but means greater social responsibility.

They have not yet known that possessive madness can not increase their meaning in life, but will only shut themselves in the cage of spiritual experience in all kinds of comparisons and expenditures, and even lower the grade of a nation by one level.

A healthy wealth class, a group of elites who understand wealth, must embody the meaning of their existence. They need to learn to abandon wealth themselves, learn to get rid of wealth and control themselves, and at the same time learn to make use of wealth to create more social values.

For all the respectable rich people, they must all know that "understanding wealth" is more difficult than "possessions".

Just as those rich people who devote themselves to environmental protection, public welfare, charity, community building and other fields often feel that "donating money is much harder than making money" is because the mainstream of society is to encourage money making, which is conducive to capital accumulation.

In terms of environmental protection, public welfare, charity and other fields, although these industries have been more and more affirmed, the hardships still need to win 100 times compared with the environment of wealth accumulation.

For today's China's wealth elite, it is not worth showing off at the top of luxury consumption.

On the contrary, in the widening gap between the rich and the poor in China and the frequent social problems in China, today, when the wealth class wants to capture the fundamental meaning of their existence, it must learn to reject the temptation of consumerism, and at the same time plunge into the use of their wealth to help social construction and help others in order to create greater social value.

We believe that only the society has become better because of the efforts of the wealth elite, the social status of the wealth elite is really stable, and the wealth elites really show their value.