HSBC Predicts Chinese Dominance Over The Luxury Industry – 28/1/10

Earlier this week, we reported that the Chinese spent more than the Russians, Japanese and US in France last year (see the MO Down for January 25). Now, the latest word is that HSBC has predicted that soon “the Chinese consumer will be the driving force for luxury goods.”

This HSBC report, as discussed in a Times Online article, also concluded that “the future is female” and described China as the “pick-me-up” for high-end brands after the financial crisis."

HSBC also said that "a new class of super-rich is developing whose spending preferences will exert a powerful influence on the wealth layers below them.” We’ve discussed this before in the MO Down, see A Peek Into Beijing’s Billionaire Playgrounds and Beijing Is Official Billionaire Central, and there is no denying the power of China’s super-rich. But how strong is that influence at the moment? We already had Tyler Brule, the editor of Monocle magazine, suggest that European luxury brands are “putting out products that Europeans wouldn’t touch” (see the MO Down for 21 December). Read too many trinkets, 'charms' and cutesy...