All things you need to know about Chinese millennials

Di Barbara Violato

Chinese millennials were born in the 80s and 90s, just in the period of the introduction of the One Child policy (1979). For this reason, Chinese millennials benefited from a series of economic and social advantages. For example, parents focused all the attention on their only child, ensuring him the best education and a lot of money.

What are the characteristics of Chinese millennials?

Chinese millennials have some common characteristics which make them special and quite different from traditional Chinese population:

1. they are well-educated, open-minded, big spenders unafraid of debt;

2. they are more than 400 million, making up 31% of total Chinese population, compared to 80 million in the United States; they are tech-savvy, digital natives and cashless: almost all the Chinese millennials have a smartphone, moreover, they use smartphones to send messages, share contents on Social Media, buy things online, pay everything (from a taxi ride to the reservation fee for vacations);

3. they are driving demand for luxury goods and consumer electronics: Chinese millennials have high purchasing power and use to reach personal satisfaction through luxury and international products. Being digital natives, they also like to keep up with technological development;

4. they are entrepreneurial: thanks to their higher education, according to JWT Intelligence, 74% of Chinese millennials would start their own business if they had trouble finding a job;

5. they are heading abroad for higher education: many Chinese millennials decide to studying abroad looking for further education. Top destinations are: United Kingdom, United States and Australia;

6. they are homeowner: more than 240 million of them live in first and second tier cities and about 70% of them own a house.

How to reach Chinese millennials?

Chinese millennials are the main target audience whom foreign marketers should not miss out. Being tech-savvy and mobile shoppers, the best way to reach them is through social media and e-commerce platforms. For example, they use to buy things through Wechat, Xiaohongshu and they like using live streaming platforms to evaluate a product is worth buying or not. Chinese millennials strongly trust KOLs and prefer niche brands allowing customers to personalise products, instead of mass brands.