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I happened to chance upon this report today. Click on the link if you’ve never seen an uber-adorable Prada Panda before. I dare you not to.
Once you get past the panda though, the report by Liana Cafolla is an absorbing one.

There is a great deal of disagreement among economists whether China’s phenomenal economic growth rate is inflated by overzealous party officials. However, for luxury goods, there is no such ambiguity. Montblanc Asia’s chief executive Jim Siano is quoted as saying growth is ‘phenomenal’. Liana goes so far as to say that a “desire for status and embedded gift-giving culture” create “frantic levels of spending.”

Curious, I searched and found a KPMG report on luxury. KPMG conducted a survey of Chinese consumers in 15 mainland cities. The report states, “On average, survey participants in the report recognised 64 different luxury brands compared to 52 in the 2006 survey. In Shanghai, this rose to 73 brands, while the figure for tier-two cities stood at 62 brands.” The full, fascinating report can be read free here.

A report on Chinese website ic98.com states, in 2007, Chinese consumption of luxury goods reached 8 billion USD, representing 18% of the world market. 13% of the chinese population are luxury goods consumers.
The report continues, in China, the luxury consumer is usually an educated yuppie between the ages of 25-40, with monthly income of between 5-50 thousand yuan. This is in stark contrast to the west where Forecast, a Shanghai-based think tank, claims that luxury consumers are middle-class individuals between 40-60 years of age.

Why is this fascinating from an entrepreneurial point of view? The answer is startlingly simple. Name me just one Chinese luxury brand. Can you? I thought not. It’s just a vacuum waiting to be filled.