As China Becomes the World's Largest Fashion Market, Could Local Players Dominate?

Actually, it's still a matter of 'when' as data from leading industry researchers differs on the precise timing of a major shift in the global luxury market: China has either already overtaken the US as the world's largest consumer of fashion or will do so in 2019 According to The State of Fashion 2019, a report co-published last week by The Business of Fashion and McKinsey & Company, "Greater China will for the first time in centuries overtake the US as the world's largest fashion market next year." Figures from market research provider, Euromonitor International estimate that Mainland China has already overtaken the US as the world's largest fashion market this year Their figures put China's total apparel and footwear market at $37266 billion in 2018, compared with $35472 billion for the US.

One of the forces driving the growth of the fashion market here is the government's long-touted "Consumption upgrade" which China's domestic brands have rushed to fill alongside their international counterparts According to Chen Ke, partner and vice president of Roland Berger Greater China, domestic fashion brands in China are responding not only to consumer demand, but also market forces that have seen wages rise and apparel and footwear manufacturing largely move off-shore, forcing manufacturing powerhouses to shift gears and become brand builders The other major driver of fashion growth in China is e-commerce, with consumers in outlying areas of the country gaining enhanced access to a remarkable array of fashion items, both branded and not, due to the ubiquity of platforms such as Alibaba's Taobao, which "Unlocked the ability of Chinese to become consumers," according to Zak Dychtwald, founder of Young China Group and author of the book "Young China" The '2018 China Online Streaming Development Study Report', released by the China Netcasting Services Association also estimated the value of China's live-streaming video market at more than 2016 billion yuan this year, up 391 percent over 2017. Source