The Yuanbao Group, in collaboration with the China Insurance and Pension Research Center at the School of Finance of Tsinghua University, recently published the "2022 China Internet Insurance Consumer Insight Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report").

As the economy recovers and market confidence improves, insurance awareness and demand awakened during the pandemic are expected to be unleashed, ushering in a new growth cycle for the Chinese insurance industry, says Li Hong, head of the marketing department at Yuanbao Group.

The Report provides a detailed analysis of the consumption behavior of Internet insurance users, focusing on insurance expenses, purchasing channels, product demand, and claims services while also describing typical consumer demographics in detail.
Millennials Show the Strongest Acceptance of Internet Insurance
Li Hong highlights that among all age groups, Chinese millennials, or those born in the 1980s, have the strongest acceptance of internet insu...

Watsons China's total revenue in 2021 was HK$22.77 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14%, the largest increase in the past five years. Watsons' online sales increased by 94%, providing a strong impetus for the recovery of performance.

Watsons' long-term digital transformation has initially yielded fruitful results, which has become its biggest driving force to resist risks.

In February 2020, Watson's WeChat mini program was officially launched, which means that the private domain is becoming its new home. The reason for the change stems from Watsons' deep insight into consumers.

Watsons noted that post-90s and Gen-Z consumers focus on online convenience and offline experience. The traditional O2O marketing strategy unilaterally drives customers from one platform to another, thus increasing sales.

Watsons implements the O+O platform strategy, breaking the limitations of O2O in the past, and becoming closer to the needs of customers so that they can experience products,...

Among the 200 million new middle class in China, the post-80s and post-90s account for 50.8% and 49.2% respectively, according to data from Questmobile.

The New Middle Class is the group of Chinese between 25 and 40 years old, living in tier-1 to tier-3 cities with an online spending power of over 1,000 yuan. Their online consumption willingness is at a medium to high level.

In terms of urban distribution, the top 10 cities are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Suzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou, and Tianjin, with the number of people reaching 9.03 million, 8.38 million, 6.91 million, 6.38 million, 5.68 million, 4.48 million, 4.42 million, 3.54 million and 3.45 million respectively.

Their population has reached 204 million with 50.8% born between 1980-1989 and 49.2% between 1990-1995.

Compared with other groups, new middle-class Chinese are more active in real estate, automobile, travel, and other related consumption.

Taking June 2021 data as an ex...

The number of brands and merchants on the Tmall Global platform as of December 31, 2020, grew over 60% year-over-year, according to Alibaba's announced financial results.

Merchants Growth on Tmall Global

From 2017 to 2020, the number of online businesses on Tmall global grew rapidly, with an average annual compound growth rate of 55.2%

In 2021, 38% users prefer Tmall Global as a top choice for cross-border e-commerce shopping. 24% would recommend; and, 27% like it, according to a survey by iResearch.

In order to better connect international brands with Chinese consumers, Tmall Global continues to innovate in its cross-border logistics solutions.

Brands that do not have a physical presence in China can now store inventory in Alibaba's warehouses located in their home markets, and Tmall Global facilitates export to China when orders are placed.

Purchases of products warehoused and shipped from ove...

More than 60% of brands choose to launch new products online during the past one year, and most choose Tmall, according to a joint report by Yicai and Alibaba.

According to the data of the report, in recent years, the total number of new products on the Tmall platform has doubled year by year, and the turnover of more than 30% of the market is driven by new products.

New products account for over 35% of all transactions on Alibaba's Tmall platform in 2020. The number of new products on Tmall doubled in 2020 to over 200 million.Click To Tweet

At the same time, the average unit price of new products is 1.3 times the overall market, which brings more value to the brand.

The post-90s and post-95s have gradually become the main consumption force of new products online, and their average transaction ...

In July 2020, food (non-fresh) and non-alcoholic beverages, alcohol, fresh produce, sun protection, and cooling products have gotten more attention from consumers across the country, according to data shared by Jingdong.

The southern provinces of Guangdong and Zhejiang saw alcohol transaction volume increase 60% YoY. In Hubei and Hebei, the transaction volume of food and non-alcoholic beverages increased by over 50%.

Beijing consumers opted for more fresh produce, with transaction volume growth of over 130% YoY. Heilongjiang and Gansu provinces saw cooling devices like ACs and fans increase by 110% YoY.

Looking at alcohol consumption by age group, post-90s consumption is increasing the fastest, with these consumers preferring liquor over other alcohols. Post-80s consumers tend to choose cocktails and cocktail mixers while post-70s consumers stay true to Baijiu.

Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Guizhou, Chongqing, and other areas saw an alcohol consumption increas...

WeChat Pay transactions for the tourism industry increased by 43% year-on-year during the recent 3-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, and the payment amount increased by 27% year-on-year, according to a joint report by WeChat and LY.com.

The short-haul getaway trips are the top options for many; the transactions on WeChat Mini Programs increased by 123.52% YoY.

In response to the call for epidemic prevention and control, many scenic spots have moved their services from offline to online. During the Dragon Boat Festival, the scenic spots provide services such as travel booking through the WeChat Official Account (OA) and Mini Program (MP).

The number of transactions on WeChat OA grew by 38.54% YoY and that on MP increased by 123.52% YoY. Guangzhou Changlong, Beijing Happy Valley, and Shanghai Disneyland have become the top three that saw most WeChat Pay transactions during this holiday.

Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou have become the top 3 popular tourist destinations in C...

Technology now facilitates the production and distribution of content. It lowered the barrier of content creation and distribution. As a consequence, contents that previously target specific groups of people can now reach a wider range of audiences in China.

The consumption of digital content has seen disappearing boundaries between urban and rural internet users, between the young and the seniors, and between countries.

First, the geographical boundary between urban and rural areas is disappearing. Now urban and rural audiences can share content between them.

Urban and rural users have entered the mobile Internet era at the same time. And thanks to the development and improvement of the various leading platforms, all kinds of content can now break through boundaries quickly and spread faster.

Rural internet users in China now have much greater exposure to information, they actually watch and read the same text, photos, and short video contents as the urban users do.

Acc...

In terms of overall trends, beauty makeup, travel, fashion, cultural entertainment, and gourmet food rank among the top five in the content ecology of Xiaohongshu’s (a.k.a. Little Red Book) community.

Education, photography, sporting events, technology & digital and home furnishing are among the top five rising categories according to a report from Xiaohongshu. Further, Xiaohongshu, who has been promoting short videos this year, has also disclosed the total duration of the Top 100 videos – about 1,204 years.

The post-95 generation has become the group that publishes the most Beauty & Makeup contents among all ages groups.

In 2019, Xiaohongshu witnessed the output of a variety of makeup content that triggered trends. Many popular makeups were shared first in Xiaohongshu before their widespread, which once again verified Xiaohongshu's ability to drive popular and trending topics.

In the fashion sector, the report shows that men are more inclined to publish fashion...

Other than returning to the hometown to reunite with the family, more and more Chinese people now choose the reverse route of Chinese New Year transportation or spending the Chinese New Year by touring. The overall popularity of Chinese New Year tourism has increased greatly; and, the proportion of the post-90s generation who chose to pay travel expenses by installments exceeded 40%.

According to data from China's Ministry of Culture and Travel, the total number of nationwide tourists reached 415 million during the 2019 Spring Festival, representing a 7.6% increase year-on-year. Based on that, the tourist total may be over 450 million for the Chinese New Year 2020.

Chinese New Year (CNY) 2020, or Spring Festival, has seven public holidays from 24 January (CNY eve) 30 January (6th day of CNY), a total of seven days.
Searches of reverse route increased by 78%; bookings Increased by 40%
This year, more and more people choose to take their parents to their residence city for th...

TikTok, known as Douyin in China, announced a new record for its daily active users (DAUs). Its DAU has exceeded 400 million in January 2020, an increase of 60% YoY. Its contents go beyond entertainment; 14.89 million education videos were created in 2019. The top creators are located in Shanghai, Beijing, and the three northeastern provinces.

In-app revenue at TikTok during Q4 2019 surged 310% to more than $50 million according to Apptopia. Tiktok's total market revenue in the Apple App Store and Google play store is around $67 million (net $62 million) in Q4, which does not include China's domestic market according to SensorTower.

460 thousand families used TikTok in 2019 to take family photos, which received a total number of 2.79 billion views and 100 million likes. Parents made 3.98 million videos on TikTok to record their moments with children in 2019.

Teachers received the most likes (620 million) on TikTok in 2019.

China's post-80s (born between 1980...

48% of China internet users define "rich" with a minimum of 10 million yuan (US$1.42 million); they value "career" the least compared with family, health, love, and wealth; women are more likely than men to go dutch while having dinner with friends, according to a survey conducted by Tencent's Penguin Intelligence.

We summarized the survey finding in four sections: new ideas of China internet users, values, state of life, and future expectations.
New ideas of China internet users
China internet users mostly think that sleeping before 23 o'clock is not considered to stay up late. The threshold for staying up late is considered to be after midnight. The percentage of post-90s staying up late is the highest, according to a survey conducted by Tencent's Penguin Intelligence.

Most netizens think that the age of late marriage is 30 years old or later. On the whole, men's age perceptions of late marriage are slightly younger than women's.

48% of Chinese netizens believe that the th...

Four segments of China's outbound travelers are worth noting: high-income group, the backpackers, generation Z, and female outbound travelers.
High-income Group: Experience Focused

This segment of outbound travelers is mostly male (69%), married, and backbones in their companies. Post-80s accounted for 55%. Married users account for 84.1%; 75.3% have children according to data from iResearch.

Managers at the middle level and above account for 33.8%. The average monthly household income of more than 30,000 yuan accounted for 66.4%.

Characteristics: high expenditure, focus on travel quality, love to buy luxury goods, digital enthusiasts.

Outbound tourist with the expenditure of over 20,000 yuan accounted for 61.6%
Tourists who choose Michelin-recommended restaurants accounted for 39.2%
Tourists who choose five-star hotel accommodation accounted for 38.2%
63.9% of tourists spend more than 10,000 yuan on shopping
29.1% of tourists will buy luxury goods
2...

35.7% of China internet users purchased insurance and 33.7% don't have any insurance policies according to a Tencent survey.

China internet users buying insurance for the first time are getting younger. Post-60s and post-70s, those born between 1960 and 1979, were over 30 years old at their first purchase. For post-80s, the average first-time insurance purchase age dropped to 26.7 y-o; and 21.7 y-o for post-90s.

Chinese consumers place higher priorities of buying insurance policies on children (74.8%) and parents (67.4%) first; insurance for oneself (31.1%) and spouse (26.7%) is on low priorities.

Insurance in China is facing high awareness but low understanding. 82.2% of China internet users are aware of insurance without much understanding while 14.6% of users understand insurance and 3.3% understand little.

The awareness of buying an insurance policy is rising; and, the most recognized insurance types are medical insurance and critical illness insurance. Life ins...

The China New Economic Research Institute and Alipay jointly issued the first "Post-90s Savings Report" in July 2019. The report shows that 92% of the post-90s, people born between 1990 and 1999, have a surplus with their salary every month, and 80% of the people manage the surplus.

By comparing their Yu’e Bao, Alipay's monetary fund, and its virtual credit card Huabei, it shows that the money saved to Yu'e Bao every month by the post-90s is 4.5 times of their Huabei bill on average. In addition, the time that the post-90s started their financial management is 10 years earlier than their parents.

Observing those who used Yu'e Bao and Hua Bei at the same time, Alipay found that they saved more than they spent. Their consumption is also more rational than the outside world imagined.

Ninety percent of them said in the survey that "when buying things other than living necessities, they will fully consider the economic status." However, when it comes to self-elevation, they are...

Post-90s generation consumers are the core growth driver for the personal care market in China.
In China, demographic cohorts were often defined by decades in which the segment was born. Post-90s generation refers to those who were born in the 1990s. They were once considered as "emerging consumers".

But now in 2019, they are in their 20s (from 20 to 29) and have become mainstream consumers for many categories. For personal care brands, they are the core growth driver.

Kantar Worldpanel data showed that on average, in 2018, each female post-90s generation consumer spent 216 yuan more on personal care products than in 2017.

More importantly, they contributed to nearly 30% of personal care category sales value growth. Their contribution to skincare and cosmetics sales value growth was an even higher 35%.

Post-90s generation consumer engagement has become the make-or-break factor for many brands. For example, for the top 50 skincare brands, their sales value growth is co...

Many Chinese consumers have the impression that most users of Pinduoduo are housewives, middle-aged, or elderly people who live in third-tier or fourth-tier cities. They are highly consistent with users of Kuaishou and have extraordinary sensitivity to low price. They are more willing to ask people for help bargaining in WeChat group in order to save a few money.

But in the real world, the situation is more complicated than the general view.

On 7th of May, Aurora big data released "2019 Q1 mobile internet industry data research report", showing that by the end of the first quarter of 2019, 44.2% of the new users of Pinduoduo, the new e-commerce platform, come from the tier-1 and tier-2 cities. The amount of user has continuously grown since then.

According to a report released by Trustdata, among the new users of Pinduoduo, nearly half of them are from first-tier and second-tier cities, with Beijing ranking first, followed by Chengdu, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Hangzhou.

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