China’s appetite for luxury goods is changing
Our weekly podcast on China. This week, has the country fallen out of love with luxury?
2025 was tipped as the year when China would become the world’s biggest luxury goods market. For years the country’s growing middle class had been a mainstay of luxury goods sales, snapping up everything from high-end handbags to pricey skincare products. But last year purchases plummeted to their lowest level in a decade.
Jiehao Chen, The Economist’s China researcher, and Don Weinland, our China business and finance editor, ask: has China fallen out of love with luxury goods?
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