Anarchy in ... China? Wealthy Generation Z prefers domestic brands over foreign names and are more wilful, report says

China’s teenagers no longer think foreign brands are superior and are increasingly turning to home-grown names amid a perception that they are better quality with an improved user experience, says a new report, turning decades of received wisdom upside down.

More than half of young people born after 2000 in China do not see products and services with a foreign origin as being superior, according to a report released this week on the country’s Post-00s generation. This demographic refers to those born between 2000 and 2010, roughly corresponding with the western concept of Generation Z or post-millennials. The oldest members of this group turn 18 this year.

“My aunt bought me the phone I have, but if it was up to me, I would’ve chosen Huawei,” a private middle school student was cited as saying in the report. “I actually think Huawei is quite good, because our teacher compared Huawei with Apple, and said Huawei was more innovative.”

Support for domestic brands and products is one of the ways this generation can show it cares about the country, and schools today are full of kids with patriotic sentiment, say the report, which was prepared by Chinese social network and gaming giant Tencent Holdings. The report is based on 15,000 questionnaires, an analysis of blogs by 72 teenagers and in-depth interviews with another 24 from the demographic, designed to extract their values and consumption logic.

This is not the first time China’s home-grown names have been lauded though. Brand power, a measure of consumer inclination to choose a brand, for Chinese brands surpassed that of global multinationals in China in 2016, according to a report by British advertising and publicity agency WPP in 2017. Young people outside China also have an increasingly positive view of Chinese brands, with 40 per cent of consumers aged 18 to 35 viewing Chinese brands as creative, according to the WPP report.