How are millennials in India and China different?
Millennials are the most powerful consumer group on Earth. In China, they are masters of digital wealth, while in India, they are stronger in English
This article was written by Preeti Kumar and originally published in Jing Daily
Today’s 1.8 billion millennial population – the 22- to 37-year-olds just reaching their peak spending bracket – makes up the world’s most powerful consumer group. They are the core business of most of the world’s companies; they dictate the design and marketing of most products and services worldwide.
Millennials in China (415 million) and India (440 million) make up 47 per cent of the world’s millennial population, and together, they will be the leading authors of our 21st-century narrative.
The two Asian cohorts seem to have a lot in common. Both live in societies that pressure their young to do well in academics, find a good job, and marry by a certain age. They are groups – much like American Baby Boomers in their youth – that have far more opportunities and resources at their disposal than their parents.
These millennials are the first upwardly mobile generation in their respective countries. Previous generations were born in small villages (China) and/or social castes (India) but that has changed with modernisation. Young people, according to Santosh Desai, managing director of Indian Brand Advisory Group Futurebrands, used to be “born something” but now can “become something”.
The driver of this change is consumption or – in other words – the activities, travel destinations, brands, and products that millennials wholeheartedly partake of to define who they are and what they will become.
Unlike their Western counterparts, Asian millennials seem confident they will live a better life than their parents.
However, despite their similarities, India and China’s millennials have evolved in markedly different ways, and there are key differences between the two markets. Chinese millennials, for instance, have larger average disposable incomes, but other distinctions also set them apart.
1. Modernisation (and colonisation) in India has led to greater integration with the West, but less so in China