About the Research
McKinsey is compiling and analyzing data from the market to understand what drives the behavior of Chinese consumers and how they compare with shoppers in other countries. Last year we interviewed about 6,000 people in 30 cities, from sprawling Shanghai to semirural towns and cities, covering all income levels except the poorest households. The breadth of cities and consumer segments represented in the survey accounts for about 90 percent of the country's gross domestic product, 80 percent of its disposable income, and 60 percent of its population. In addition, to gather comparable data from developed countries, we conducted an online survey of consumer attitudes in the United Kingdom and the United States, representing a full range of ages, incomes, and regions.
Few executives at multinational consumer goods companies could pinpoint Gaochun on a map. Yet places like Gaochun, a town of 100,000 people in eastern China, are home to hundreds of millions of consumers with money to spend. Companies that dismiss these smaller cities and towns as too poor and hard to reach could be missing a large growth opportunity over the next decade.
It's no surprise that most global consumer goods companies initially focused their efforts...