Chinese brands were once synonymous with cheap, poor quality products, but improvements to quality and branding have changed consumer sentiment, and international brands are paying the price.
Wade Shepard, a business writer based in Xiamen, explored the reasons behind the rise of domestic Chinese brands in an article for Forbes, the business magazine.
He cited recent research from McKinsey, the management consultancy, which recently found that 62% of Chinese consumers now prefer domestic brands over foreign ones if the quality and price are the same.
Wade also interviewed Mark Tanner, the Managing Director of China Skinny, a Shanghai-based consumer research firm, who said Chinese attitudes have changed significantly in just five years.
“If we look back to 2011, 31% of Chinese consumers wanted to support Chinese companies by buying Chinese goods. Just a year later, if was 43%,” Tanner said. “It is representative of how fast Chinese consumers are maturing.”
Clearly, the marked improvement in the quality of Chinese brands has been key to their domestic and international growth, but Tanner also noted that Chinese consumers are now more confident in the social status than domestic brands convey.
(Source: WARC.com)